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ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION 



AND 



INCUBATORS. 



ILLUSTRATED. 



.A. TREATISE OlST 



RAISING POULTRY BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS.. 

WITH 

DESCRIPTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF JITTERY 

INCUBATOR OR HATCHING APPARATUS 

WORTHY OF NOTICE, 

IN ANCIENT OB MODERN TIMES. 



By A. M. HALSTED, 

RYE, N. Y. 

SECOND EDITION. 

REVISED A 1ST 13 ENLARGED 



NEW YORK. 

Akbebt Mbtz & Co., Printers, 60 John Street. 
1883. 



ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION 



AND 



INCUBATORS. 



ILLUSTRATED. 



-A. t:fl:e.a.tis:e oisr 



RAISING POULTRY BY ARTIFICIAL MEANS. 

WITH 

DESCRIPTIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF EVERY 

INCUBATOR OR HATCHING- APPARATUS 

WORTHY OF NOTICE, 

IN ANCIENT OR MODERN TIMES. 



/ 



By A. M. HALSTED, 

RYEj " Y ' f JUL 25)883 

SECOND EDITION. 



LND E 

1883. 



<5> F4S b" 



Dedicated to that most genial and whole-souled body of men- 

The Poultry Fraternity. 

By the Author 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1883, by A. M. Halsted, in the office 
of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



!t7 



CONTENTS 



Page. 

Introduction 3 

Chapter I. General Remarks 5 

. " II. Artificial Incubation. 8 

" III. Management of Incubator ,...-. 14 

" IY. The Egg . 19 

V. Care of the Eggs 28 

VI. Care of the Chicks , 37 

VII. Rearing Chickens to Adult Age 44 

VEIL Estimates of Costs and Profits 47 

IX. Egg Testers and Brooders and their use 51 

X. Incubators qq 

XL Houses, Yards, Location, etc. . 126 



ei 



INTRODUCTION 



When, nearly two years ago, the necessity for a work like this 
became apparent, and the author was asked by numerous friends 
to prepare and publish one, it was with reluctance that he accepted 
the task ; for, although he had had his share in snapmg, and con- 
tributing to the poultry literature of the country for the past ten 
years, he felt that to undertake a work such as was needed and 
demanded by the fanciers of the country required no small amount 
of study and research, and he doubted his ability to complete it 
in as thorough and comprehensive a manner as he knew it should 
be done. 

The assurances of friends, however, and the seeming success of 
other writers, who, he felt assured, had not a tithe of the ex- 
perience which necessity had compelled him to acquire, has en- 
couraged him to persevere in the completion of the work. As 
first contemplated, he did not intend it should be over half the 
number of pages, but the subject grew on his hands, Incubators 
multiplied in numbers, and were he to mention all inventions of 
this nature which have received recognition at the U. S. Patent 
Office, he would be obliged to add another score to the number 
already described. 

In gathering information, he wishes to acknowledge indebted 
ness to Balfour's Embryology, to Wright's Practical Poultry Keep- 
er, and also to the columns of the various poultry papers. 

That there may be no misunderstanding regarding the notices 
of Incubators which appear in Chapter X, he would state here 
that every manufacturer, whose address was known, was notified 
by letter of his intention to devote a chapter to such notices, and 
given an opportunity to write what he wished to have said about 
his invention. Less than half a dozen accepted or replied ; their 
communications appear in their own words, and over their own 
signatures and addresses. All information regarding other ma- 
chines has been compiled from such sources as were available ; in 



INTRODUCTION - . 

some cases he had personal knowledge of the machines, and of 
their strong and weak points ; in others the information has been 
derived from circulars and books, and, in some few instances, 
from verbal communications from those who had used the Incu- 
bators. Of course, under such circumstances, the inventor's 
name should not, and does not, appear. 

His object has been not to compile a collection of circulars and 
advertisements, but to make the work as complete as possible, 
that it may be a book of reference to searchers after knowledge 
on this subject, and a medium of instruction to those who wish 
to try hatching and rearing poultry by artificial means. 

If he has succeeded in this effort, of which his readers must be 
the judges, he is content. 

A. M. Halsted. 

Rye, N. Y., July 1st, 1880. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



-*-♦- 



The success attending the First Edition, and the very com- 
plimentary notices received from its readers in all parts of the 
country, encourage the author to revise and enlarge the work, 
before presenting the Second Edition to the public. 

This he has done by adding a number of pages to several of 
the chapters, entering more fully into the details of the subjects. 
The chapter on Incubators also has been enlarged by the illus- 
tration and description of a number of Machines, which have 
been brought before the public since the issue of the last edition. 
A new chapter is added to the work, in response to numerous 
requests for such information, treating of Houses, Yards, Loca- 
tion, etc., and giving illustrations pertaining to the subject. 

Again submitting his work to an appreciative public, he 
awaits their verdict. 

A. M. HALSTED. 

Eye, N. Y., May 1st, 1883. 



ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION AND INCUBATORS. 



CHAPTER I. 

General Remarks. 

It appears to be a prevalent idea that while poultry in small 
flocks will pay a good profit to the keeper, in larger numbers the 
losses more than counterbalance the gains. 

This opinion is well supported by facts, for the record of fail- 
ures in the attempts to raise and market poultry in large numbers 
— in other words, to make a business of it — are numerous, while 
the instances of success are very rare. 

Yet, that it can be made successful is beyond a doubt. In near- 
ly every case of failure which the writer has investigated, there 
has been found, first, no practical acquaintance with the business ; 
and second, it has been made a secondary matter : some other oc- 
cupation or employment occupying the most of the thoughts and 
time of the owner, the poultry business being expected to run 
itself, and requiring only a casual supervision of the attendant 
morning and night. As well might one expect to transact a bank- 
ing business or any other mercantile pursuit, and be absent from 
his office or store three-fourths of the time. 

The largest enterprises often have their origin in very small be- 
ginnings ; the projectors of such know and appreciate the folly of 
attempting to conduct any large business upon the same capital 
and with the same clerical help as in its incipient stages ; yet the 
majority of those who go into the poultry business appear to think 
that it is an exceptional occupation, requiring nothing but some 
houses, some fowls, some feed, and a boy or man to supply the one 
to the other. Herein is the fatal mistake. Apply the same capi- 
tal, the same business tact and enterprise, give it one's whole time 
and attention, and success is quite as certain as in any other 
pursuit. The same watchfulness and attention to business is as 



ECONOMY. 

requisite here as in the dry goods or grocery trade. Supplies must 
be purchased when and where is most economical, taking every 
advantage of the market. It is poor policy to buy any article 
that can be produced on the place at a less cost ; and vice versa, it 
shows lack of business tact to raise corn, grain, or anything else, 
which can be purchased cheaper in the market. So, also, regard- 
ing investments in buildings, stock, etc. If a house costing one 
hundred dollars will answer the purpose intended, and can be 
built for that sum in a substantial manner, every dollar expended 
above that amount is virtually wasted. 

Another view, however, may be taken of this subject; houses 
may be made so cheaply that constant repairing and, in fact, al- 
most rebuilding, will be necessary every year. This is as unwise 
an investment as the former, and equally to be condemned. 

In the purchase of stock, also, economy may be carried too far. 
A lot of fowls, averaging three or four pounds each, costing fifty 
cents apiece, will be very dear breeding stock if selected in prefer- 
ence to others of twice that weight, and costing double the price. 
The first will dwarf their progeny, while the last will produce 
their like ; in a season's breeding, where a thousand or more chick- 
ens are raised, the difference in the profits would be an item of no 
small amount. 

Taking only, one thousand chickens as the amount produced, 
and allowing a difference of but two pounds each in gain for the 
large fowls over the smaller ones, we have an increase of two 
thousand pounds of marketable flesh, which, at ten cents per 
pound, is an item of two hundred dollars to the profit side of the 
account. 

The small profits must be closely looked after. ' The droppings 
carefully saved and sold, or used on the land. The sale of feath- 
ers in a large establishment make quite an item. The saving of 
food by the use of improved feeding utensils, and the saving of 
time by using, as far as economical, labor saving tools and con- 
veniences about the houses and yards. It is by attention to the 
small minutise of any business that success is assured. "Take 
care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves." 

Help enough must be kept to ensure the necessary care of the 
stock, but at the same time the work may be so systematized that 
three pair of hands can do the work which heretofore has required 
four. 

The arrangement of the buildings and their location are of con- 
siderable importance; all necessary conveniences should be added 
to facilitate the work. The feeding system so arranged as to re- 
quire the least possible time in the distribution of food. The fat- 



MAKKETING. 7 

tening arrangements constructed on the most approved plans, con- 
sistent with the available capital of the builder; the saving of time 
and feed will be found an item of much importance. 

Marketing is another point to be considered, where it is pro- 
posed to raise poultry for sale. The distance to a good market, 
and the cost of sending the products there, will sometimes absorb 
so large a share of the profits, that the business is practically un- 
profitable. It is not only necessary that there be a good market 
within reach, but the marketing facilities — (i.e.) the means of 
reaching the place quickly and frequently, and at a moderate ex- 
pense, be also assured. 

Boat routes are always the cheapest, but they have the disad- 
vantage of being uncertain in stormy weather, and frequently 
discontinued during the winter and early spring. Therefore, 
when a place is selected on such a route, it is necessary also, to 
be within teaming distance of a railroad, that the market may 
not be shut off, during part of the year. 

In marketing Broilers, a near market is almost a necessity; for 
to get the best returns, they should be sent in dressed ; this can- 
not be done over a long route during the warm weather, at which 
time they bring the best price. 

Finally, the sanitary measures must be of the best, and no re- 
laxation of vigilance permitted in following up the enforcement of 
cleanliness, both in the buildings and the feeding and drinking 
vessels. 

The houses and coops should be frequently cleaned and swept, 
and a liberal use of whitewash made at least twice during the 
season. If a little crude carbolic acid be dissolved with the wash, 
it will add very much to the healthfulness of the fowls. Drain- 
age must be looked after, as a wet or damp poultry house and 
runs begets cholera and roup in old fowls, and rheumatism and 
disease in chickens. 

In all departments of the enterprise, thoroughness is of the 
greatest importance. Have a complete system about the work 
and its execution, and see that it is fully carried out : do not be 
satisfied with any make-shift, but let the motto be, " well done is 
twice done." 



CHAPTER IX 
Artificial Incubation. 

It is but a few years since that the idea of hatching eggs by- 
other than natural means was scoffed at as the visionary notion 
of some over-sanguine inventor. 

That it had been done, and was still a matter of actual every- 
day business in Egypt and some other warm countries, was well 
known; but there the operation was conducted so secretly that 
none but the regular attendants knew anything of the process. 

" Eccaleobions ", " Potolokians ", and "Incubators" have been 
made and used with varying success in this country for about 
forty years: and in England and France for double that period. 
But until within the past three years, they have never given suf- 
ficiently successful results in the hands of any but their inventors 
to become of any use to the community at large. 

Artificial Incubation, in theory, is one of the simplest things im- 
aginable. All that is necessary is to keep the eggs at the proper 
temperature during the time necessary to bring forth the chickens. 

In practice, however, that very necessary evenness of heat is 
found to be impossible, unless one of two expedients be employed. 
One of these is to sit by the apparatus and watch it constantly; 
and the other is to employ some mechanical device to make the 
machine control its own heat — in other words, to be automatic or 
self-regulating. 

The positive necessity of this is obvious to every one who has 
attempted to hatch chickens artificially : for no matter how nicely 
a machine may work in a room of even temperature, when sub- 
jected to a variable temperature, it cannot retain the same heat. 

If, to use an Incubator without any regulating apparatus, it is 
necessary to have an evenly heated room, why purchase any ma- 
chine at all? A tank of water with a lamp under one end, and a 
shallow tray of eggs under the other, will answer every purpose. 
If the heat of the room is kept uniform, and the flame of the lamp 
of even height, the heat generated by and radiated from the tank 



APPLICATION OF MOISTUfcE. 9 

of water will also be regular and even ; but if the temperature of 
the room varies, the tank of water will vary with it. 

As well attempt to run a steam engine without a governer as an 
Incubator without a regulator. 

Another practical drawback in Artificial Incubation is the ques- 
tion of moisture. 

How much, and how supplied? Theories are of no avail here. 
Practical experiment alone can determine the matter. Theory 
gives a probable reason for its necessity, but does not supply the 
want. 

The first step the writer took in this direction was to test the 
question of evaporation of moisture from the egg while under 
artificial heat. I placed fresh eggs, selecting those of equal weight, 
in the Incubator, and under hens : the former were subjected to 
a dry heat. At the end of three days there was a discernable 
difference, and at seven days a very marked variation in their 
weights, while at fifteen days there was over half an ounce dif- 
ference. 

Now, to apply the theory : an egg, after having been under a hen 
a few days, will be observed to have a polished appearance, as if 
oiled and rubbed. There is probably some oily secretion on the 
feathers of the fowl which, with her action in moving the eggs, 
produces this appearance. This coating, slight as it is, suffices to 
prevent rapid evaporation, and yet does not clog the pores of the 
shell. 

Eggs placed in the Incubator always retain the same fresh ap- 
pearance, and the evaporation is much more rapid; hence the 
necessity of supplying moisture artificially to keep the egg in as 
natural condition as possible. The effect of this evaporation is to 
harden and toughen the white membraneous lining of the shell so 
that when the time comes for th» chicken to hatch, he cannot pick 
his way through, and he is as hopelessly immured as if locked in 
a sheet iron box. 

The artificial application of moisture has been made in a num- 
ber of ways : by sprmkling, which is the mode usually employed ; 
by charging the air with moisture from pans or trays of water 
placed in the egg chamber; by heated pipes, which vaporize tanks 
of water through, which they pass, and by keeping flannels or 
other substances saturated with water under the eggs. The first 
two are the only safe methods, as the others are liable to rot the 
eggs. 

Next, and equally important, is the subject of ventilation. The 
writer was among the first, if not the very first, who publicly 
stated that ventilation was imperatively necessary in the egg 



10 APPLICATION OF HfiAt. 

chamber. A tightly closed drawer or tray, such as was first used, 
was always productive of bad odors. The exhalation from the eggs, 
which was largely of carbonic acid gas, always sank to the bottom 
of the egg drawer, and was fatal to the life of the chicks. 

Experiment soon decided that a certain amount of ventilation 
was necessary to carry off this gas, as well as to cool the eggs, 
should the drawer get too hot ; but also that more than a certain 
amount was unnecessary, and a waste of heating power. 

Then arose the question of the proper heat and how to apply it. 

In natural incubation the heat is supplied from above. This is 
the case in all kinds of eggs. The birds' nests are of twigs and 
grasses, allowing free passage of air under the eggs. Even the 
reptiles' eggs — alligators and turtles — lying in the sand, receive 
the sun heat on top; and the hen that makes her nest in the 
thicket, or under the brush heap, usually brings out a larger and 
stronger brood of chicks than one which has her nest in the most 
costly poultry house. 

Nearly all the early efforts at Artificial Incubation were made 
on the principle of surrounding the eggs by heat. Reaumur, one 
hundred years ago,- tried the process with horse manure, and 
achieved a partial success only. Other machines constructed on 
this principle resulted in virtual failures, and one after another 
dropped out of sight. In fact, it has been proved over and over 
again that eggs subjected to a uniform heat above, below, and 
around them, will not hatch any satisfactory percentage. 

Other efforts were made with currents of hot-air, generated by 
lamps or stoves ; these, too, were only partial successes. Heated air 
cannot be made to diffuse itself from any given point, laterally and 
evenly over any surface. To effect this, the heat must be generated 
and communicated to the eggs by some other medium, one which 
will give a uniform, steady, even temperature over all parts of any 
desired surface. Water seems to be the only available agency, and 
the most easily controlled. Confined in a vessel of suitable shape, 
and caused to circulate by peculiar modes of construction, it has 
been found to give what is required, viz: a moist, regular heat, 
applied from above, evenly distributed, and equally over all parts 
of the desired surface. 

As is well known to most breeders, the germ, or life principle of 
the egg, always floats on the top. Under the influence of the heat 
applied from above, the arteries and veins expand and extend, fol- 
lowing the inside of the white until they reach completely around 
and encircle the yolk. The extremities of these veins are very fine 
and delicate. Nature, in her wise provision for the best develop- 
ment of their growth, ensures the bottom of the egg, where these 



r 

TEMl»MRATtJBE. 11 

fine veins are, being kept rather cooler than the top. The contact of 
the body of the mother bird with her eggs, heating the top of the 
eggs and keeping that portion several degrees warmer than the 
bottom. 

When, therefore, the heat is applied under or all around the 
eggs, these fine veins, instead of growing, shrivel and dry up ; the 
yolk sack, instead of being absorbed by the growing chicken, dries 
fast to the shell, and about the fifteenth or sixteenth day the chick 
dies. Some may reach the twentieth day, and a few may and 
often will hatch out ; but the percentage is so very small that it 
virtually amounts to a failure. 

The proper heat has been the subject of much debate on the part 
of the various manufacturers of Incubators. The degree adopted 
varying from 90° to 106° degrees Fahrenheit. One French author 
and mechanician placed it at 90°. An American experimenter, E. 
Bayer, put it at 102° ; M. Cantelo of London at 106° ; M. Vallee of 
France at 104°, and upwards. Later experimentalists seem to 
have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. One places 
the degree required at 106° at first and gradually decreasing to 
100°. Several at. 104° and decreasing. My own custom has been 
101°, increasing to 104°, and a considerable number of those who 
at first tried the reverse system, have discarded it and now use 
mine. 

The great diversity of opinion on this subject fifteen or more 
years ago, necessitated the solving of the question by actual ex- 
periment. I therefore had thermometers made of different shapes : 
some with flat bulbs and curved stems to place between the wings 
and the body; others with broad flat bowls to place under the 
breast of the hen ; others again to test the internal heat, and still 
others to get the heat between and under the eggs. The result of 
the experiments, covering a period of several weeks, and testing 
above forty hens, was to establish an average heat of 103° for the 
three weeks. This was the contact heat at top of the eggs; the 
heat at the center of eggs was about 101°, and the bottom, or 
under the eggs, 98° ; and in one case, where the nest was on the 
bare ground, as low as 94°. 

I know that some writers state positively that the heat of the 
hen is greatest at first, when the sitting fever commences. A little 
thought will convince any unprejudiced person that this cannot be 
so. When the hen first begins sitting, her breast is covered with 
feathers, which are known to be a non-conductor of heat : these 
interpose between the body and the eggs, and consequently lessen 
the heat. As the time goes on, these feathers come out, and by 
the end of the three weeks the bare breast is on the eggs. Conse- 



12 SELECTION OF IttCTTBATOlL 

quently the eggs get an increased heat as the time of incubation 
passes on. Another thing to be taken into account, is that the hen 
sits closer towards the last of the time than she does at first. So 
we have two reasons why the heat is greater at the close than at 
the beginning. 

' There are now made over thirty different styles of Incubators, 
some are patented, others are not : of this number there are prob- 
ably half-a-dozen that will do good work in the hands of any in- 
telligent person ; perhaps half-a-dozen more which their inventors 
can hatch with, but with which the success of others would be ex- 
tremely problematical; and the remainder are not much better 
than the tin pan with a lamp under one end and a tray of eggs 
under the other. Some of them, in fact, being perfectly worthless 
for the purpose, and only a fraudulent means of obtaining money 
from a class of people who always make cheapness their one crite- 
rion of value. 

In advising the fanciers which Incubator to buy, it is a little dif- 
ficult, in our position as inventor and manufacturer, to be entirely 
impartial ; still, we shall strive in these pages to allow the claims 
of no one machine to be advanced in any way that may prove 
detrimental to another. 

In selecting an Incubator — which we take for granted every 
breeder of any extent will be obliged to do within the next few 
years— we should advise, first, send for circulars of the leading 
sorts, those which you know are in successful operation. Examine 
well their claims to superiority ; use your own common sense in 
determining questions which are in dispute between rival manu- 
facturers ; ascertain from older fanciers than yourself, which man- 
ufacturer brings to his work the ripest judgment, and fullest expe- 
rience. Find which kind will best suit your own special need, and 
is best adapted to your building or room. Examine testimonials ; 
we well know that many of these are supposed to be manufactured 
for the occasion, but when you see the names of prominent fan- 
ciers, known throughout the length and breadth of the land, ap- 
pended to such, it is safe to believe that they are genuine. It is 
only the unknown names, in out of the way places, that we are 
apt to distrust. 

Second, receive with the greatest caution all accounts of failures 
and stories of the worthlessness of rival machines. The best 
machines made will sometimes make failures, either wholly or 
partially, from one cause or another; and he who uses the mis- 
chances of a rival to bolster up his own reputation, or can find no 
better mode of advertising his own goods, than by running down 
those of his cotemporaries, had better be dealt with very cautious 
ly, or left wholly alone. 



SECRETS. 13 

Lastly, beware of ' ' secret processes". They are a fraud, patent to 
every one who has ever made Artificial Incubation a study. We 
shall give in these pages all the " secrets" that are necessary to full 
and complete success. 

The only "secrets" in the business are those said to be known 
by the ancients, who, it was stated, possessed the means of deter- 
mining in advance of incubation, whether or no the egg was im- 
pregnated or fertile, and also the sex of the un-incubated embryo. 
"We very much doubt if either could or can be told. There have 
been many theories promulgated about it, but all have been tested 
and found worthless. 

The other so-called secrets of the Egyptians, in their practice of 
artificial incubation, were simply "experience," gained by the 
teachings of their predecessors and the necessities of their busi- 
ness. The testing of the heat, and the proper amount of moisture 
to be applied, without a thermometer, being no more difficult 
than the testing of the old-fashioned brick ovens by our grand- 
mothers, before putting in a batch of bread. 



CHAPTER in. 

Management of the Incubator. 

This is a matter upon which it is difficult to go into particulars, 
for the forms and kinds of machines vary so much, and the di- 
rections for their care also differ so, that the advice applicable 
to one may be wholly unsuited to another. 

I can, therefore, only generalize, or else refer more particularly, 
when necessary to enforce a certain idea, to the Incubator I have 
had most to do with — the Centennial. 

The old saw, ' ' Many men of many minds", was never more ap- 
plicable than in connection with this subject. Hardly any one but 
has his special preference, or, perhaps we might say, adaptation to 
some particular pursuit or business ; and many are they who, with 
a positive disrelish for his or her occupation, will be certain to make 
a failure of it. 

The man or woman who lacks tact for any special business, had 
better (to use a solecism) give it up before commencing. And he 
who has no taste for the pursuit of poultry breeding, or ' ' knack " 
in comprehending or managing machinery of any kind, should 
never purchase an Incubator, with the expectation of making a 
grand success with it. We meet such persons occasionally. They 
make — from descriptions or drawings — a machine, (or, perhaps, 
buy one), start it, and stock it with eggs, imagining that they 
have done all that is necessary ; they await in delightful anticipa- 
tion the expiration of the three weeks. It comes : possibly a few 
weakly chicks make their appearance, but more often it is a total 
failure. If blessed with more than the usual amount of patience 
and perseverance, another trial is made, with a like result; and 
the whole thing is given up in disgust, Artificial Incubation 
pronounced a failure, and Incubators a fraud. ' 

We have in mind several instance* like the above, one of which 
will bear reciting. 

A fancier in a Western State had purchased an Incubator. Soon 
after receiving it, he wrote a very long letter, asking innumerable 



REQUISITES TO SUCCESS. 15 

questions ; some about matters with which it was to be supposed 
every one who had ever kept poultry was thoroughly conversant ; 
others about the care of the Incubator, and which were already 
answered in the fullest possible manner in the directions accom- 
panying the machine. The opinion was at once formed that that 
man had not the necessary "tact " to succeed with the Incubator. 
In less than a month, another letter to the seller of the machine 
requested him to either take it back or find a customer for it. " It 
would not work, could not be made to work, and was an outrage- 
ous fraud on the breeders". A few weeks afterwards, another let- 
ter stated that the machine had been sold at half price to a neigh- 
bor, who was having splendid success. Purchaser number one 
acknowledged he had been too hasty, had not had enough patience 
(a rare acknowledgement from purchasers of Incubators), was 
sorry he had sold it, and concluded the fault was entirely in his 
not understanding how to manage the machine. 

The truth wa» acknowledged in this case, he had neither the 
knack or the patience necessary for success. 

This ' ' knack" consists not merely in understanding the mechan- 
ical apparatus, and the directions for the care of the machine, but 
in fully appreciating the necessity of attending to every point 
necessary to success and leaving no one of them undone. It is not 
enough that a, machine shall work with almost a perfect equality 
of heat for the entire three weeks : there are other things needed, 
and the neglect of any one of them, small as it may apparently 
seem, may cost the loss of the entire clutch of eggs. 

One of the first requisites is to have a room of comparatively 
even temperature, in which to run the machine. I say " compar- 
atively", for I hold that an Incubator which requires a room of 
uniform temperature to ensure its successful operation, is but lit- 
tle better than a pan of water with a lamp under one end and a 
tray of eggs under the other. By comparative, I mean a temper- 
ature with a variation of not over fifteen to twenty degrees during 
twenty-four hours. Of course, no Incubator will work uniformly 
in a varying temperature of twenty-five or thirty degrees, because 
the heat necessary to keep up the temperature in a very cold room 
will make it too hot when a room gets very warm : and vice versa, 
the heat which is amply sufficient to keep eggs at the required de- 
gree in a warm room, will not nearly do it in a very cold one. "We 
all know that a stove or furnace, used to heat any given space, 
must be regulated according to the amount of heat needed ; and 
that, with an out door temperature of zero, it takes double the 
amount of coal that is consumed in moderate weather, to keep 
the room or space comfortable. Without attention and an increase 



16 REGULAR ATTENTION. 

of fire heat in extremely cold weather, the room cannot be kept 
warm. If run with the same draft and same supply of coal the 
season through, the room will be too hot in moderate weather and 
not warm enough in very cold weather. 

The same philosophy that relates to the stove, applies with 
equal force to the Incubator. No matter how much of a " self - 
regulating " machine it may be, the supply of heat must be regu- 
lated by hand, giving more or less as the temperature of the room 
requires. 

The use and benefit of a regulating attachment is in controlling 
the temperature of the machine, from day to day during the tem- 
porary absences of the operator. And that one which will do its 
work under the greatest changes in temperature, and is the most 
reliable under all circumstances, and yet simple enough to be 
comprehended by every one, is the one that will be adopted by 
the majority of those who use an Incubator. 

No matter how simple, or how complicated the apparatus, it 
must not be constantly fussed with. Do not put in any eggs until 
the working of the machine is perfectly understood, and when 
once comprehended, then expect it to take care of itself, without 
frequent alterations. 

Regularity in the necessary attention to the machine is import- 
ant. The lamps had best be filled and trimmed daily, and that at 
early evening, or even before it is dark, if it can be done conven- 
iently. My own practice, when at home, is to fill and trim just be- 
fore dark. Then leave the machine an hour or more ; returning, 
examine the lamp to see that the flame is of the proper height ; 
then take out the drawers, etc. ; regarding which, see ' ' care of 
eggs". The directions must be carefully conned, and implicitly fol- 
lowed. Water trays or pans cleaned and refilled weekly, or oftener, 
if necessary. Tank and boiler kept full; all soot, that may accu- 
mulate, must be cleaned off daily. A very thin coatirg of soot 
will destroy half the heating power of the lamp, which is equiva- 
lent to a consumption of twice the quantity of oil. 

Where electricity is used, the battery must be watched, and 
chemicals added when necessary ; do not wait until the battery 
has weakened, but keep up its strength. The zincs must be 
cleaned as directed, and worn out ones replaced. It is best to 
clean the zincs and jars alternately ; i. e. , not removing both cells at 
same time ; thus the battery is kept more uniform in strength. 

An Incubator rarely gets thoroughly heated through, and all its 
parts in uniform working order, under two or three days ; hence 
it is better, as a rule, not to put eggs into the machine until the 
third or fourth day. 



SUDDEN CHANGES. 17 

All the mechanism should be kept free from dust and dirt: 
heavy or gummy oils should not be used, they collect dust and 
make the machinery work hard. Oil only where directions say, 
and that with the best sewing machine or sperm oil. It is better 
not to oil at all, than to use thick or gummy oils. 

Should there happen a very cold snap of weather, and the means 
of heating the Incubator not be adequate to keep up the temper- 
ature, cover it with a heavy blanket — an old army blanket will 
do — leaving only the ventilator and lamp uncovered. Should the 
heat have gone down, draw off the Avater and refill with very hot 
water. This will be found to be often necessary with some kinds 
of Incubators. 

Padding, or hanging pads or cushions of feathers, felt or cotton, 
around the machine has been resorted to by some parties, and, it 
is claimed, with much success. The machine is stated to burn 
much less oil, to run more evenly and to be less subject to outside 
changes of temperature. 

For heating purposes, only a high grade oil should be used. 
Kerosene of 150° fire test will be found the most economical and is 
perfectly safe. It is also much more free from smoke and from the 
strong kerosene odor so much disliked by many persons. I cannot 
give any special brand of oil, for it is sold all over the U. S. under 
different names. Ask for kerosene oil of 150° fire test. The ordi- 
nary kerosene, such as is sold by country grocers, is about 110° to 
115°. A cheaper oil of about 90° is frequently substituted. These 
oils are the ones that so frequently cause the terrible explosions 
and burning accidents of which we daily read. Oils of 150° will 
not explode, and may be used with every assurance of safety. 

When the season is over and the Incubator is to be laid up, 
the water pans, tank and boiler should be emptied, draining all 
the water off that will run. Then burn the lamp with a low flame 
for several hours, leaving all the stoppers open, so as to dry out 
the inside of the machine. After this, put the Incubator away in 
the attic or some dry room, until wanted again. 

A frequent cause of trouble is using a higher flame than neces- 
sary. This causes the heat in the egg chamber to continue to rise 
— sometimes one or more degrees— after the ventilator opens. 
Only heat enough should be used to keep up the necessary temper- 
ature ; all above that is wasted. It is much better to run the In- 
cubator so that the opening and closing of the ventilator does not 
occur more than two or three times daily, rather than every half 
hour. Where these frequent changes take place, there is a waste 
of heat, and consequently of oil. 

This waste of heat is peculiar to machines without regulators — 



Itj LOCATION OF THERMOMETER. 

cheap machines, which depend on a very free circulation of air 
through constantly open ventilators, as a prevention against over- 
heating. The constant passing off of the heat necessitates a rapid 
and steady generation of the heated air, which must add largely 
to the consumption of oil. 

With hot air machines, i. e., those which use the heat direct 
from the lamp or stove, employing no intervening medium to re- 
tain and distribute the heat, there must either be imperfect venti- 
lation or a great waste of heat. If the ventilation is free, it re- 
quires a large consumption of fuel to keep up the required temper- 
ature. If the heat and fuel is economized, it must be done at the 
expense of ventilation, and if the latter, the drawer soon becomes 
foul and full of bad odors. At one of our large shows during the 
winter of 1880, the pleasure of viewing a very successful exhibition 
of hatching in a large glass machine, was almost counteracted by 
the vile odors which came from the badly ventilated apparatus. 
Very many visitors turned away in disgust, or viewed the ex- 
hibition beyond the smelling limit. 

Very few, probably none of the many Incubators yet construct- 
ed, have an absolutely uniform heat in and over all parts of the 
egg drawer. The front part, that nearest the door, is usually the 
coldest ; in some machines there being several degrees difference 
between front and back. Yet it is here, in front, that the ther- 
mometers are usually placed. It should be at the point where the 
heat is highest, as it is there where all the danger is. Some 
machines have a thermometer placed in the tank, giving the 
temperature of the water : this is never reliable, as a dozen causes 
may make the heat in the drawer vary greatly from that of the 
water. Others have the thermometer made stationary — fastened 
to the case of the machine : unless provided with a very long mer- 
cury tube, it cannot give the actual heat ; it is too near the out- 
side of the machine. 

In placing the thermometer, it should be where the heat strikes 
the egg in the natural process. Select the warmest portion of the 
drawer, and place the bowl of the thermometer as nearly as possi- 
ble on a level with the top of the eggs. If it is laid on the eggs be 
sure to have the stem or scale a little the highest — a very little 
will do, but it should never be perfectly level or with the bowl the 
highest ; if so, the weight of the mercury more than counteracts 
the cohesion of the metal, which is all there is to draw it into the 
bulb as the temperature decreases, and the thermometer will most 
likely show a higher temperature than actually exists, and also, 
will not show any decrease in the heat of the drawer, if such 
should occur. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Egg. 



Deeming that it is necessary to a full understanding of the 
process of Artificial Incubation, I shall give as briefly as possible, 
an account of the formation of the egg, and the mode and proba- 
ble time of impregnation. 

In the structure of the egg we have first the shell, which is 
sufficiently porous to allow the process of respiration. Next is the 
shell-membrane, which is double, and composed of an outer thick 




leathery membrane, (s. m. Fig. 1) and an inside thinner one (i. s. 
m.) At the large, or ' ' butt " end of the egg, between the shell and 
the membrane, is the air-cell or air bubble (a, c. h.). In freshly 
laid eggs this r.^ace is so thin as to be hardly discernible, it rapidly 
increases in size, however, as the white of the egg shrinks from 
evaporation. 



20 



THE EGG. 



Next under the shell-membrane is the white of the egg or ' ' al- 
bumen," as it is called (w.). This is formed of numerous thin 
layers of fluid albumen, which alternate in consistency, these 
form a network of elastic character, completely surrounding and 
protecting the yellow yolk (y. y.), which comes next, and in turn 
nearly encircles the white yolk (w. y.) The yellow yolk is also f orm_ 
ed in several concentric layers, separated by very thin fluid lay. 
ers of albumen. This white yolk has the appearance of a round 
white spot of three-sixteenth to one-quarter inch diameter, con- 
nected by a funnel-shaped opening with the upper and outer edge 
of the yellow yolk, &*w* on the surface of 

which floats a small CrfSS&foi&^V white discabout 

one-quarter inch in f§m. S3W ^^* diameter; this is 
technically called ^^B^B^^^S the blastoderm or ci- 

catricula (bl. Fig. 1). ^^^^^^0^^^. Tlie la ^ er of albu " 

men immediately W^lm^S^r^ surrounding the vel- 

low yolk, forms, at ^^^^pK^ each extremity a 

spirally twisted cord t^g^Oi (chl. ) , the outer ends 

of which are free and /f^^smf^r c ^° n0 * °l uu " e reach 

the shell. The ac- im|%^\i^^^^^^ tion °^ these i s n °t to 

suspend the yolk as W\^^v^5^^^r m any think, but 

rather to keep it in j^^^^f^^jj^^^ position by their 
weight and elastic- £/^SK^^^^% ity. They are called 

the Chalazoe. The §[ Mf^^ ^^m W9 entire yellow yolk 

is closely encased in ^^^Mk^^^^ a thin elastic sac, 

called the vitelline ^^WB|f "^llk membrane (v. t.), 

which at the top j^ lllfe ilk doubles downward, 

passing around and m\ ^Bfek, jm under the w h i t e 

yolk. Examining ' il^i-JIBHlfjIJB the blastoderm with 

the naked eye, we ^^^^m^^Sf can distinguish an 

opaque white rim ^^^<Mr^ surrounding a par- 

tially transparent i§!(i II centre, in the mid- 

dle of which we see Jk nnf^ a small irregular 

shaped white spot. Fig. 2 — The Oviduct. This is the spot at 
which impregnation takes place. This disc is known as the germ- 
inal disc, and the white spot as the germinal spot. In an unini- 
pregnated egg the disc is marked with numerous irregular clear 
spots. 

Before going further, it is necessary to speak of the formation 
of the egg, during its passage through the oviduct or egg-passage. 
(See Fig. 2.) 

This, in a hen of ordinary size, is nearly two feet in length. It is 
placed directly under the ovary — a portion of which is shown in 



GERMINATION. 



21 



the cut — and as the yolks mature they break loose from their en- 
closing membrane, called the ovisac, and are received into the 
oviduct. 

This latter, consists of four parts. 1st. The dilated proximal 
extremity of the ovary. 2d. A long tubular canal opening by a 



E 



uarrow neck into 
be called the uter- 
passage which 
uterus into the 
the second portion 
ceives its covering 
the chalazaB. In 
above spoken of it 
membrane, and in 
the shell is form- 
through the sec- 
from three to four 
through the third 
twelve to eighteen 
tion occurs in the 
ond) portion of the 
matozoa is found 
fluid which the 
It is not quite cer- 
nation can occur 
tion of the albu- 
fact that sperma- 
discovered in the 
possible that they «-' 
through and reach 
The blastoderm, as 
ers the germinal 
glass; as incuba- 
spreads like a thin 
the yolk, immedi- 
telline membrane, 
more of the yolk 



W'l 




Fig. 3. 




i2> 



Fig. 



ys 

5. 



the 3d, which may 
us; and 4th, the 
leads from the 
cloaca. It is in 
that the yolk re- 
of albumen and 
the narrow neck 
receives its shell- 
the third portion 
ed. The passage 
ond portion takes 
hours, and that 
portion from 
hours. Impregna- 
upper (first or sec- 
oviduct. Thesper- 
here, moving in a 
passage contains, 
tain that impreg- 
after the deposi- 
men, though the 
tozoa have been 
albumen, makes it 
can bore their way 
the germinal disc, 
we have seen, cov- 
"™ .spot like a watch- 
tion progresses it 
circular sheet over 
ately under the vi- 
covering more and 
until it Complete- 



ac 



ly encloses it. In Fig. 3 we have a longitudinal section of the yolk 
with the embryo already formed. This may be seen with a pow- 
erful light, though not so perfect as it here appears, at the end of 
the first day. 

Fig. 4 shows a section at thirty-six hours, and fig. 5 at forty- 
eight hours. In the latter the yolk sac (ys.) of the inner yolk is 



22 



GROWTH OF THE EMBRYO. 



nearly absorbed into the alimentary canal (a 1 ) and the embryo be- 
gins to show quite distinctly. 

Fig. 6 gives another view of the yolk (looking down) at the end 
of the third day. This shows the heart (H.) in the centre of the 
yolk, and the arteries radiating from it. By this time the yolk is 
about one-half covered by the rapidly forming veins and arteries, 
and the embryo may be seen through the shell of the egg with a 
good egg-tester ."If ^^WlS^, a portion of the 

shell is carefully ^^^M^^^^^ removed, directly 

over the embryo, J0^^L^^^^\, the faint pulsa " 
tions of the heart /^p^^^^S^®^^ v may be distinctl 7 
seen with the nak- i^^Sm^^^^M^ ed e ^ e ' By the 
end of the fifth f^^^^^^^^^mk} da ^ the ^ olk is 
completely en- ^^^^^»^^^^» closed by the blas- 
toderm. The em ^^^^^mJU^^^' "bryo appears in a 
curved shape; the ^^^^mJ/Ji^^^S :/ feet making their 
appearance, look- ^^^^®M- IKWuW ing like faint 
streaks on the end ^^^ftlfe^^^^^ ° f tlie le £~ like a P~ 
pendages. By the ^4^1^^ end of the sixth 

day, the heart, FlG - 6 - which was at first 

a simple tube, attains almost its complete form, and its covering— 
the pericardium— is first seen. 

On the seventh day the crop and rudimentary intestines make 
their appearance, the beak begins to develop, and if the shell is 
broken, the first movement of the limbs is seen. A rocking 
or pulsating movement of the whole embryo may be seen through 



the shell, if held before 
now becomes more fluid 
sorption of the white, 
day the embryo grows 
beginning to form and 
them. The embryo, at 
taken from the shell, 




a strong light. The yolk 
owing to the rapid ab- 
From this to the tenth 
very rapidly ; the bones 
flesh appearing on 
the eleventh day, if 
appears as shown at 
teenth day the toe-nails 
formation of the scales 



Fig. 7. On the thir- 
appear and also the * IG - ' 

on the toes; the feather-sacs have sufficiently developed to show 
the color of the coming chick. The fifteenth day a change of 
position takes place, the chick lying lengthwise in the shell ; pre- 
vious to this, the embryo has lain as formed— crosswise ; the bill 
opens and closes, and distinct motions of the wings and legs may 
be seen. By the close of the sixteenth day the white of the egg has 
entirely disappeared. The yolk-sack connected to the chick by the 
umbilical cord lies loose between the body of the chick and the 



FINAL DEVELOPMENT. 



23 



shell-membrane, until the nineteenth or twentieth day, when it is 
drawn into the abdomen of the chick. 

Fig. 8 shows the appearance of the chick on the nineteenth day 
with the yolk-sack not fully absorbed. And Fig. 9, the chick as he 




Fig. 8. 

lies folded in the shell just previous to exclusion. About this stage 
the chick pierces the membrane with his bill and begins to breath the 
air contained in the air-cell. The development from this time is very 
rapid. The blood ceases to flow through the outer membranes, 
which shrivel and dry up, the egg-sack is entirely absorbed, and 

the loosened end Fig. 9. flies off : resting 

a few moments, he gives one or two more vigorous kicks, which 
clears him from the shell, after leaving it in the condition shown at 
Fig. 11, and he begins his active life. Here we will leave him for 
the present. 

The fertility of the egg depends on a number of circumstances. 
The number of hens allowed to each cock, the size and vigor of 



24 



FERTILITY. 



the male, the breed of fowls, and sometimes on the individual 

bird. 

With Leghorns, Hamburghs, Houdans, Games, and other small- 
bodied birds, from twelve to twenty hens to one cock will usually 
ensure fertile eggs; while with Cochins, Brahmas, Dorkings, etc., 
eight to ten should be the limit, and if kept in confinement, six 
will be found a safer number. With Crevecoeurs, my experience 
is that the males are deficient in virility. In the Asiatic classes 
the size of the male may cause non-fertility. An unusually large 



bird is clumsy, and 
weight bears down 
feats, or prevents 
this connection 
tioned a frequent 
perienced by poul- 
which,' for want of 
have termed ' ' In- 
tion. 1 ' The cause of 
able to determine. 




so heavy that his 
the hens, and de- 
impregnation. In 
may also be. men- 
cause of trouble ex- 
try breeders, and 
a better name,- I 

effective Fertiliza- 
Fig. 10. it j have been un 

We find it first shown in eggs Which have 
been under incubating heat for twenty-four to forty-eight hours ; 
the germinal spot receives the impregnating spermatozoa, the 
veins form, pulsations begin and cease, and life dies out. Other 
eggs in the same nest, or side by side in the Incubator, progress, 
and in due time hatch out strong and healthy chickens. This 
ceasing of life not ^^^^^^^Pm on ^ occurs during 

the first twenty -four J^^^ ~Kmm or f° r ty -eight hours, 
but may happen on Mp /j |J| any of the twenty 

days previous to the fl -^*~% *Jw exc lusionofthe 

chick from the shell. iHb^ ~^n 1 { "^' e nn( ^ ** a * * ne n ^ n 
day, at the tenth, the ^M||l||||ll^ ^d J twelfth, fifteenth, 
while other eggs un- ^^^^^^^^f j c ^ er ^ ne same treat- 

ment in all respects, ^^^^/ progress and hatch. 

It may be, and has Fig. 11 - been charged, in the 

case of artificial hatching, to lack of moisture ; too much moisture ; 
too high a heat ; not enough heat ; bad ventilation ; and half a dozen 
other assumed causes ; but if it occurs only in a few cases, and these 
not in any certain part of the nest, or egg-drawer, but scattered in- 
discriminately among the rest — if these few cases are caused by an 
improper amount of heat or moisture, why not more ? or all ? If a 
whole clutch is gone, then the trouble probably is with the incuba- 
tion. But these scattering cases, occurring as they do under the 
most favorable circumstances for the hatching of every fertile egg, 
are seemingly chargeable to no other cause than ' ' Ineffective 
Fertilization." 



TIME OF IMPREGNATION. 25 

Another matter, which may properly be considered here, is the 
time and limit of impregnation. Some fifteen years ago, I was 
convinced by the result of a chance mes-alliance, that if hens of 
one breed were allowed to run with the cocks of another their 
value as breeding stock for pure bred fowls was destroyed. The 
question has again and again formed a subject of discussion in 
our poultry journals, and has led me to make a careful series of 
experiments, the results of which I think of sufficient interest to 
present here. They were enough to show me that my first posi- 
tion was untenable, and again convince me that my first convic- 
tion was wrong. 

I give the experiments in the order they were made. First, the 
time of impregnation. I took a Brown Leghorn pullet, which had 
not yet laid, and penned her by herself. The first five eggs laid 
were placed in the Incubator, and, as I anticipated, proved not fer- 
tile. A cockerel, of same breed, was placed with her at night, af- 
ter she had gone to roost. The next egg laid (the sixth) was non- 
fertile, as was also the seventh. But the eighth, ninth, and 
tenth were fertile, and all hatched. At this stage the cockerel was 
taken out, and a Light Brahma cockerel, with heavy leg feather- 
ing, was substituted. The next six eggs were put in the Incuba- 
tor; the eleventh and twelfth hatched pure Brown Leghorns, the 
thirteenth showed a little leg feathering, and the fourteenth, fif- 
teenth, and sixteenth were all well feathered on the legs. Again 
the cock was taken away, and the eggs placed daily in the Incu- 
bator. The seventeenth proved non-fertile, the next four were 
fertile, and showed the leg feathering heavily. Then three more, 
with gradually decreasing leg feathers ; the twenty-fifth germin- 
ated, biit died at the fifth day, and the twenty-sixth to thirtieth 
all proved non-fertile. 

I again took the same pullet and put a Brown Leghorn cock with 
her. The first day she did not lay ; the second and third she did. 
The fourth she missed again ; the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth 
she laid. All these eggs were put in the machine, and all proved 
fertile, except the one laid on the second day. I did not carry 
them through to hatching. This would seem to indicate that if a 
hen was laying at the time the cock had access to her, the third 
egg laid subsequent to intercourse would be the offspring of such 
male. 

I tried the same experiment , later, as to time of impregnation, 
with a Brahma pullet, and in two trials had a result of fertility, 
in the first case, of the second egg, which was laid on the fourth 
day, and next in, the third egg, which was also laid on the fourth 
day. 



26 DURATION OF IMPREGNATION. 

The next experiments I shall mention, were as to the limit ol 
impregnation. 

I took a laying hen from the yard, and penned her by herself in 
a grass run. The sixth egg, and from that on until the twentieth, 
which was laid the twenty-second day after her separation from 
the male bird, were placed in the Incubator. The sixth to eleventh 
eggs proved fertile ; all after that, barren. Two hens were next 
taken from the yard, and put in same pen, and the eggs saved af- 
ter the seventh day. Of these, one of every day's yield proved 
fertile, and of the other, fertility ceased with the tenth egg after 
separation from the cock. Still another trial of two hens resulted 
in the sixth egg of one hen and all after that proving barren, and 
those of the other, up to the twelfth, proving fertile. 

I then selected a Brown Leghorn, a Light Brahma, a Houdan, 
and a cross-bred hen ; after three changes of the cross-bred, I got 
four different shades of color in the eggs. The Leghorn eggs 
proved fertile to the ninth egg ; the Brahma to the fourth, the 
Houdan to the thirteenth, (the last two, however, dying at two 
and five days), and the cross-bred to the sixth. 

A Leghorn cockerel was then put with these four hens. The 
second Leghorn egg — laid on the fourth day — was fertile, also the 
first Brahma egg, laid on the fifth day, the third Houdan egg laid 
on the third day, and the second cross-bred hen's egg, laid on the 
second day. 

This would give an average of fertility extending seven to eight 
days after the separation of the hen from the cock ; but subse- 
quent experiments lead me to think that it is not safe to rely on 
more than five or six days, except with the non-setting varities — 
Leghorns, Houdans, etc. 

I know of one well authenticated instance of a Houdan hen's 
eggs having been saved, and set for upwards of twenty days after 
sale and removal of the male bird, and the eggs proved fertile up 
to the twenty-fifth day. 

The next experiment I give was virtually a continuation of the 
first. The same Leghorn pullet, after having been with a Brahma 
cockerel three days, was penned with a cockerel of her own kind. 

The influence of the Brahma showed plainly in the first four 
chicks, was not apparent with the sixths but showing again 
slightly in the eighth. Six eggs after this, to the fourteenth, were 
set, the twelfth and thirteenth only hatching, and both were with- 
out any apparent cross of Brahma blood. A second experiment of 
the same kind with a Houdan hen, crossed with a Leghorn cock- 
erel, and then put with a Houdan cock, showed distinct marks of 
the Leghorn comb to the sixth, and slight indication in seventh 



DURATION OF IMPREGNATION. 



27 



and eighth egg hatched after removal of the Leghorn cock. I 
conclude from this that the average influence of a mes-alliance 
between birds of different breeds may be considered as commen- 
cing with the third, and terminating with the seventh or eighth 
eggs. 




A Non-Freezing Water Fount. 



CHAPTER V. 
Care of the Eggs. 

Properly, this should commence with the laying of the eggs? 
and I will start from as near that point as possible. 

Many beginners in the poultry fancy seem to think that eggs in- 
tended for sitting need a particular kind of treatment and manipu- 
lation. While there is no doubt that careful handling and protec- 
tion frequently greatly add to a successful result, still it by no 
means follows that eggs will not hatch if subjected to rough treat- 
ment and exposure to cold. 

So far as the latter is concerned, I would much rather the eggs 
be kept in a room where the temperature ranged from freezing 
point to forty degrees Fah. , than in a place where the heat reached 
as high a point as eighty degrees. Of the two extremes, I would 
also prefer to trust the eggs to the lower ; by which I mean, that I 
am convinced that any ordinary degree of cold — say ten degrees 
below the freezing point — does not necessarily kill the vitality 
of the egg, so long as the shell is not broken by the action of the 
the frost ; and, on the contrary, the vitality of the egg is greatly 
injured and decreased by exposure to a temperature of eighty 
degrees, or thereabouts, for any considerable time. 

Of course, I do not wish to be understood as recommending 
either of these two extremes, but would choose a temperature of 
about forty to fifty degrees as being the most suitable. 

There seems to be no doubt but sudden, violent jarring will sever 
the chalazoa in the interior of the egg, and thus destroy its vital- 
ity; though eggs will stand the trembling, shaking motion of a 
wagon or car, and give tha most satisfactory results in hatching. 

The real care necessary is very little ; simply gather the eggs 
daily, mark them plainly — variety and date — (washing them if 
much soiled), and lay them away in a cool room. If intended for 
use within two or three days, place them in a basket or 
other receptacle. If it is necessary to keep them longer, it is best 
to have flat boxes af about three or four inches in depth, in which 



EFFECTS OF EXTREME TEMPERATURE. 



29 



place an inch or two of bran or sawdust — I prefer bran, — place the 
eggs in this, large end down, as close as you can pack them. An 
egg cabinet is a very convenient arrangement for storing eggs. 
This may be made cheap and simple, or as elaborate as one's fancy 
and pocket may dictate. Our illustration (Fig. 12) gives a very- 
plain representation how one may be constructed. Some persons 
insist that the small end down is proper and preferable. My ex- 
perience does not coincide with this method. 

The theory is simple and easily understood. The air cell in the 
large end of the egg always enlarges while the egg is laid away. 
If the butt end is up, the evaporation of moisture is greater, and 
the pressure of air through the open pores at that end rapidly in- 
creases the size of the bubble. If the butt end is put down, the 
weight of the liquid contents of the egg, pressing down on the 



bubble, hinder the 
air and allow only 
gradual increase 
air cell. This can 
taking two eggs 
carefully mark- 
air cell in each 
them away, one 
other butt down, 
weeks compare 
ped for hatching 
packed this way. 
only average- 
shaped eggs; un- 
uneven-shaped 




Fig. 12. 



entrance of the 
a very slow and 
in the size of the 
easily be tested by 
of equal size, and 
ing the rim of the 
with ink: put 
point down, the 
At the end of two 
them. Eggs ship- 
should always be 
For sitting, use 
sized, regular- 
usually large and 
ones are apt to be 



infertile, or to produce malformed chickens. 

The amount of cold and exposure eggs will bear without injury 
during the term of incubation has created much diversity of 
opinion. 

From a comparison of records of experiments conducted by the 
writer, and also from other data which I have compiled, I find 
that the ratio of loss decreases very fast as the process of incu- 
bation proceeds. Thus, when the eggs have been subjected to the 
necessary heat for forty-eight hours, the danger from chilling or 
overheating is vastly greater than at or after the fifteenth day. 
Eggs that would be ruined by an exposure of four or six hours to 
cold, or two or three hours temperature of 110° on the fourth 
day, will remain uninjured through double that time and greater 
heat or cold at the seventeenth day. 

It frequently happens that a hen leaves her nest during the 



30 KATIO OF LOSS. 

early stages of incubation, and the eggs are perfectly cold when 
discovered. The hen may sit with exemplary steadiness during 
the rest of the time, but no eggs hatch. The same result may, and 
probably will, follow at any time during the first ten days, while 
during the last week an exposure of a whole day would, perhaps, 
seriously affect only a small number of eggs. 

The same with an excess of heat; 108° is dangerous, and 
110° almost sure death to life in the egg at any time during the 
first week if continued for half an hour or more, while I have sub- 
jected eggs to a heat of 115° on the seventeenth, and again to 
120° on the eighteenth day, and yet hatched seventy-five per cent, 
of the eggs thus exposed. 

From this data I have deduced the following ratio of liability 
of loss during the twenty-one days of incubation. By exposure to 
cold, we mean such as would ensue from the hen quitting her 

nest during .^a^^^^HH^^^- April or 

May. In- ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ . tense cold 

or heat, of >^filill ll|[l l B BBl l iSI|Btk course, not 

eight hours ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^S will usually 
be affected ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^=^ ^^^ the same as 
if perfectly ^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ fresh; at 

four days, ^ ^ the loss is 

about ninety Fig. 13. five per cent 

at six days, ninety per cent. ; eight days, eighty-five per cent, 
ten days, eighty per cent. ; twelve days, seventy -five per cent, 
fourteen days, sixty per cent. ; sixteen days, fifty per cent. ; eigh- 
teen days, twenty-five per cent. ; twenty days, ten per cent. 

Of course this cannot be accepted (nor is intended) as a positive 
table, applicable under all circumstances. The fertility of eggs 
varies with different breeds and under different circumstances, 
and while some are destroyed by very slight exposure, others will 
stand an extreme degree of heat or cold. 

We now come to the egg under process of incubation. During 
the first three days it is best to turn them once daily ; twice will 
do no hurt, but I am not certain that it is of any benefit. I have 
left them unturned for the first three or four days, and had a hatch 
of over seventy-five per cent. Sprinkling with luke-warm water once 
daily is sufficient for the first ten days ; and for the first five days, 
I believe, if the air in the egg chamber is well cnargea with mois- 
ture, sprinkling will not be necessary. It is after the absorption 



TESTING THE EGGS. 



31 



of the albumen that sprinkling, or some other form of application 
of moisture to the egg, becomes positively necessary. 

After the third or fourth day, the eggs must be turned twice 
daily to obtain the most satisfactory results. About this period— 
the third to fifth day— the eggs should be tested, and the barren 
ones taken out and their places filled with fresh ones. 

The accompanying illustration (Fig. 13) shows the appearance 



of a barren 
ed through 
er. Such 
change their 
save the en- 
the air bub- 
the machine 
whole three 
cubation. 
eighth day 
aibumen, be- 
tery, and the 




egg, as view- 
the egg-test- 
eggs do not 
appearance, 
largement of 
ble, if left in 
during the 
weeks of in- 
After the 
the white, or 
comes wa- 
yolk loses its 



Fig. 14. 
consistency; but a non-fertile egg will not become rotten by the 
simple action of the ordinary incubating heat. If removed at two 
or three days, it is not injured for culinary purposes; but if left 
under heat a week or ten days the white and yolk will usually 
run together if the egg be boiled. My practice is to save the bar- 
ren eggs taking them out at the first testing, and boil them for 



the young 
they are first 
Figure 14 
embryo at 
days, as seen 
tester ; and 
dead one, 
has germin- 
f rom ineffec- 
tion, or other 
died. In 
the dead 




chicks when 
hatched, 
shows alive 
four to five 
through the 
Figure 15 a 
i. e. , one that 
ated, but 
tive f ertiliza- 
causes, has 
these cases 
germ, or 



Fig. 15. 
dark spot, will often be found adhering to the side of the shell, 
while in a five embryo the germinal disc will gradually rise to the 
top as the shell is turned. In the live embryo the vejns will be 
distinct, and, if the egg is white-shelled, the color of the blood 
can be seen; in a dead one, the veins are simply dark, irregular 
lines, broken and clouded, the cloudiness shading into the vitelline 
membrane. 



32 



LIVING AND DEAD EMBRYOS. 



Those eggs which have germinated but died, should also be 
removed. These are the ones that become rotten, and are so 
offensive. 

This testing should be repeated about the tenth day, when the 
living embryo will be seen through the shell, as represented at 
Fig. 16. Holding the egg steadily the chick may be seen to move 
in the shell— not suddenly, but more of a waving, or slow pulsa- 
ting move- ^^^ggj ^- ^-"^ ^^ ment. The 
appearance ^^gj jfljjpi ^ ^-fc \ °^ the dead 

embryo at j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^k ^ s s ^ a & e * s 
s h o w n a t ^if|s giggjgSSiB jSI||||^\ Fig. 17. with- 
out distinct- / ^^^B^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^1 nessorform. 

time those ^fe=lll5E=i l^^^ ifiiti=|r that were 
left in at the ^^^p ^j ^ZZZI^zlig l lP^ previous tri- 

al as doubt- ^ -"" ful will be 

found to Fig. 16. have under- 

gone no change, and should be taken out. It is best to mark such 
eggs as we are in doubt about, with an interrogation point (?). 
They are then readily distinguished from those known to be fertile 
and alive. By this time most of the embryo chicks will be feather- 
ed, and will almost fill the shell, leaving a small, light space on 
one side of the small end «of the shell, as also the air cell at the 
large end. 



By the 
day the en- 
opaque, ex- 
cell at the 
the egg ap- 
shown at 
however, we 
appearing 
with the air 
side, and all 
in nine cases 




eighteenth 
tire shell is 
cept the air 
butt end, and 
pears as 
Fig. IS. 
find an 
like Fig. 
cell on 
else opaque, 
out of ten the 



If, 

egg 
19, 
the 



Fig. 17. 
chick will be found to be dead. 

"We also often find an egg at about the eighteenth day with the 
air bubble occupying nearly one-third of the egg — the line between 
the chick and the air cell being irregular but distinct. In such 
cases the chick is either dead, or, from some cause, not as fully 
matured as it should be. If hatched at all, it is usually deformed ; 
but generally it dies in the shell. 



TURNING THE EGGS. 



33 



In these illustrations, prepared expressly for this work, I have 
given the general appearance of the egg as seen through the 
egg tester. Variations are frequent, the air bubble sometimes 
appearing to one side of the butt end ; but I have never yet found 
a fertile egg with the air bubble, at the first testing, in the posi- 
tion shown in Fig. 19. 

In turning the eggs it is well to change their positions in the 

position Fig. 18. through- 

out the whole period of incubation some get too much heat 
and others too little. I am speaking now of the general run 
of Incubators. There are several makes that vary so little in 
the temperature in the egg drawer, that these remarks do not 
necessarily apply to them, although the practice recommended, 
can do no harm even with these. In changing their positions take 

Under the Fig. 19. breast than 

to those on the outside edges of the nest under her wings. Na- 
ture, or instinct, teaches her to move the eggs frequently, bring- 
ing those from the outside into the center of the nest. If any 
of my readers will watch a sitting hen from some point where 
the hen cannot see him, he will find this movement made at in- 
tervals of every half hour or of tener. 



34 SPRINKLING. 

Mr. Wren, an English experimenter, tested this matter by mark- 
ing the eggs. He says : 

" I have examined the eggs under a sitting hen, and made the 
following memoranda of the position of the eggs during a part of 
one day. At 10.30 a. m., marked four eggs, and left them in the 
center of the nest; at 1.30 p. M. three of the marked eggs were 
moved to the outside. Marked three more, and left them in the 
middle; at 2.45 p. M. the three marked last were moved to the 
outside. Marked four more and left them in the middle ; at 4 p. 
m. the four marked last were on the outside, and some of those 
marked first were back again to the middle of the nest. " 

The well known habits of the ostrich corroborates this fact. 
Her nest is made in a hollow in the ground, and the eggs, to the 
number of eighteen to twenty-four, deposited in it. Both male 
and female ostriches incubate, taking turns at the work. They sit 
astride of the eggs, their legs on either side of the nest, and the 
outer eggs are never changed in their places. The consequence 
is that about from four to six eggs in the middle of the nest 
natch, and the remainder are addled. It was this large percent- 
age of loss that led to the use of Incubators on the ostrich farms 
of South Africa. 

From the tenth day onward, the eggs should be sprinkled twice 
daily. This may be done by the fingers, with a small whisk- 
broom, with a florist's rubber sprinkler, or by an " atomizer." I 
use about one gill of water to a drawer of one hundred eggs. 
It is best to apply the water when the eggs are first taken out of 
the Incubator, leave them ten or fifteen minutes so that they may 
absorb the water, after which turn them and replace them in the 
machine. 

If turned, then sprinkled, and put at once into the Incubator, 
the heat of the egg chamber evaporates the water before the eggs 
can absorb it. 

It is during the first ten days that the greatest percentage of 
loss usually occurs. A very variable heat, extremes of heat or 
cold, or any prolonged term of either, will kill the embryo at this 
time, when the same exposure after the fifteenth day would prob- 
ably have no bad result. A variation of three and four degrees is 
not necessarily hurtful. If the air is moist, the eggs will bear an 
even greater variation of temperature ; but if a dry air, it is gene- 
rally injurious if allowed to get above 105° or 106°. 

It will be found that a heat of 101° to 102° is the safest for the 
first week, gradually increasing to 104° at the close. If the eggs are 
being placed in the machine from time to time, a steady heat of 
102i° to 103° will be found productive of the best results. 



TESTS FOE LIFE. 35 

Dead eggs will sometimes be overlooked and left in the machine ; 
frequently, these may be detected by small drops of yellowish 
fluid, or of frothy liquid exuding through the shell ; remove them 
as soon as discovered, handling them very carefully. Do not 
shake them or unpleasant results may follow. 

About the eighteenth day I give the eggs a quick dip in warm water 
— say about 95° to 100° Fah. This is repeated on the nineteenth, 
twentieth, and twenty-first days, if the chicks are not coming out 
quick and strong. A good, healthy lot of chicks will commence 
pipping the shell on the twentieth day, and sometimes on the 
nineteenth, and by the commencement of the twenty-first, two- 
thirds of the clutch will be out. If the hatch is delayed beyond 
the twenty-first day they are apt to be weakly. 

When the egg first shows the crack, or break, made by the im- 
prisoned chick, it is a good plan to place it with butt end the high- 
est ; this gives the chick a better chance to turn, and to get out 
after cutting the shell all around. If the chick seems to be long 
in breaking out, the shell membrane being dry and tough, he may 
be helped. The best way to do this is to hold the egg with the 
hand immersed in a pan or bowl of tepid water, leaving only the 
bill of the chick, or the broken part of the shell, above the surface ; 
then with the other hand carefully break the shell and pull off 
the enclosing membrane. This can, with a little practice, be suc- 
cessfuly accomplished in nearly every case. 

It is sometimes desirable to know if the chicks are alive in the 
shell, and the probability of their hatching. During the final 
stages, the egg tester does not always decide this point. Two other 
tests are sometimes used — the water test and the glass test. The 
first may be used with perfect safety on eggs that have been 
Tinder hens, but it is risky to try it on eggs that have been in the 
Incubator, the pores of the shell being so open that it takes but a 
short time to absorb water enough to drown the chicks. The test 
is to place the eggs in a pan of lukewarm water : those which sink 
are unmistakeably dead, those that float on the side are rotten, 
and those that have healthy, living chicks in them will soon bob 
around in the water in a very amusing manner. 

The glass test, while not so thorough as the water, is always 
safe. It consists in placing the eggs on a pane of glass, lain flat a 
table or stand. The live ones will usually show a trembling, vibrat- 
ing motion, or perhaps roll along the glass. The disadvantage of this 
test is that one cannot with certainty tell the dead ones. I have 
dropped one or two drops of cold water on an egg that had lain 



36 THE GLASS TEST. 

motionless on the glass for some seconds — which usually brings a 
protest from the enclosed chick as the chill strikes him — but with- 
out effect, and on breaking the shell found the chick alive, appa- 
rently all right. 

A not uncommon complaint from users of Incubators, is the 
dying of the embryo at about the eighteenth day. The cause of 
this is hard to determine. It may result from a lack of moisture ; 
though when this is the cause, death will not usually ensue until 
the twentieth or twenty-first day. In high altitudes, or any ele- 
vated and very dry atmosphere, this is a frequent occurrence and 
can only be obviated by a liberal sprinkling after the tenth day. 

It is almost impossible to prescribe the exact amount of moist- 
ure necessary to give the best results, because the amount varies 
with the state of the outside atmosphere. It varies also with the 
temperature; more moisture being requisite in warm weather 
than in cold. Experience is perhaps the surest teacher in such 
cases, and even experience is sometimes at fault. 

We sometimes have directly opposite results, under apparently 
the same conditions and management. For instance, A and B, 
each buy and use an Incubator of same pattern. The machines 
work to perfection during the whole three weeks : On the twenty- 
first day, A gets ninety per cent, of good healthy chicks, while 
B gets fifteen or twenty per cent., and sixty or seventy per cent, 
dead in the shell, at the eighteenth or twentieth day. Both have 
"followed the directions for management to the letter," yet with 
entirely different results. What caused B's failure ? Who can 
say positively where his management was at fault. I have heard 
of two such cases the present season. It might be ascribed to 
lack of sufficient moisture; to too much moisture; too much 
heat ; not enough heat, or a half-dozen other causes. If the di- 
rections have been implicitly followed — and we have no means of 
knowing that, for one person's interpretation of them may be, 
and frequently is, totally different from anothers — then the fail- 
ure can be ascribed to only one of two causes : either lack of vi- 
tality, or unfavorable electrical condition of the atmosphere. 

I am inclined to think that lack of vitality, or defective ferti- 
lization, was in this case the cause of failure ; otherwise, why did 
not the remaining seventy per cent, hatch as well as the twenty? 
If seventy per cent, died in the shell from any mistake in man- 
agement, why not all ? Clearly, because some were more perfectly 
fertilized than others, and having more vitality, lived through 
the unfavorable stages and came out. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Care of the Chicks. 



After the chicks are hatched, they may, in some machines, be 
left several hours, or even a whole day, in the egg chamber. With 
others it is necessary to remove them as soon as the feathers are 
dry. The directions that go with the Incubator must be the 
guide in this matter. 

Either brooders or hens must be in readiness to takt care of the 
chicks. If brooders, there are three or four different makes from 
which to make a selection. For indoor use, where there is no. 
trouble from rats, any of them will answer a very good purpose ; 
for out-door use we recommend such as is represented by Fig. 20 
(description of which will be found in a succeeding chapter.) 




Fig. 20. 



If hens are to be used to brood the chicks they should have 
T>een kept sitting some days in advance ; when the chicks are taken 
from the Incubator, which should be at evening, they should be put 
under her and allowed to remain all night. In the morning take 
her off with the brood, and if she is quiet and gentle, more chicks 
may be given her from the machine. In very cold weather I 
should limit the number to fifteen ; in May she may have thirty 
or forty and will take good care of them. Put her in a good, dry, 
clean coop. Figs. 21 and 22 show a plain and cheap style which 
.most breeders can make themselves. 

If anything more elaborate is desired, specimens are shown in 
Fig's 23, 24 and 25. The last two are shown with wire runs attached. 



38 



THE FIRST FEED. 



This is of great value where eats and rats show too great a liking 
for chickens, and may be used with great benefit until the chicks 
,are ten days to two weeks old. 

With the brooder it is especially valuable, where they are placed 
out doors, in keeping the young chicks near home until they have 
learned where to run for shelter and warmth. The runs I have in 
use are of different shape from that shown in the cut. They are 
four feet long, two wide, and one high, made of three-quarter inch 



mesh No. 18 
ting, fast- 
frame of 
all galvan- 
thing like 
shown at 
Another 
run may be 
wire net- 
feet wide, 
foot lengths 




Fig. 21. 



wire net- 
ened to a 
band iron, 
ized. Some- 
t h e one 
Fig. 25. 
excellent 
made of 
ting two 
cut into six 
and tacked 



to wooden frames, two by six feet ; an end piece two feet square 
will be necessary if it is wished to cover the run. The same 
frames may be made of quarter-inch round iron, the ends on one 
side projecting four to six inches, and pointed so as to stick into 
the ground and hold the frame in an upright position. Where the 
wooden frames are used it will be necessary to tie them, or hold 
them in place with hooks. 
For the 



t y - four 
food need 
the yolk-sac 
sorbed by 
ens just pre- 
their exclu- 
the shell, af- 
the suste- 




first twen- 
hours no 
be given: 
thatwasab- 
the chick- 
v i o u s to 
sion from 
fording all 
nance re- 



Fig. 22. 

quired. For the next forty-eight hours give them the yolk of hard- 
boiled eggs, crumbled or chopped fine ; stale bread, moistened in 
milk is also good. Oat-meal, though rather too expensive for fre- 
quent use, is one of the best kinds of food. It should be soaked in 
water or milk before using. During this time they should be fed 
little and often — as often as every two hours. Water may be given 
them in dishes that should be so protected that the chicks cannot 
get into it. I say "may be given," for it is by no means necessary. 
If wet food is used I would as soon refrain from giving water until 



ANIMAL FOOD. 



39 



they are ten days or two weeks old. I have raised as good broods 
without water as with it. 

After the third day a variety of food may be used. That of which 
I use most is coarse Indian meal and wheat bran, equal parts by 
measure, thoroughly mixed and scalded, to which I add, if I can 
get it, about one-eighth as much ground beef scraps. If the latter 
is not to be had, I would throw in a gill of fine ground bone to 



e v ery fifty chicks 
can be had, give 
week a feed of 
sheep's, or swine's 
fine. With the 
which the liver 
the meal and bran 
it as soon as it 
"dry scald," not 
This meat food is 
necessary early in 




Fig. 23. 



When neither 
them twice a 
boiled beef's, 
liver, chopped 
hot broth in 
was boiled, scald 
mixture, and feed 
cools. Make it a 
mushy or pasty. 
jjL more particularly 
the season before 
earth-worms and 



the chicks can get 
snails. They need animal food of some kind, and in the absence 
of worms, bugs, and insects, the ground scrap-cake is a most ex- 
cellent substitute. 

In giving mixed, or wet food, it is advisable to use feeding ves- 
sels of some kind. The one represented at Fig. 26 is a good con- 

se veral 
be made 
wires va- 
width for 
aged chic- 
bottom 
rim of top 
of either 
metal ; the 
maybe 
sections, 
ting a pie 



trivance ; 
sizes may 
with the 
rying in 
different 
kens. The 
and outer 
maybe 
wood or 
feed cups 
made in 
like cut- 
into quarters, 
and water 




Fig. 24. 

Our illustration represents alternate ones for feed 
They are filled through the top, which lifts off. 
For water, when it is given to the young chicks, we prefer the 
simple apparatus shown at Fig. 27. It is home-made, and can be 
made by anyone with a pair of tinner's snips and a couple of old 
preserve cans. Cut off the bottom of one an inch and a half high; 
the other, as shown in engraving, cut three inches up, making the 



40 



MAGGOT PITS. 



openings three-quarters of an inch wide for the first chicks. Af- 
ter a week or ten days others will have to be made one inch wide ; 
bend these ends in, or cut them off, and put together as shown in 
the cut. Another style of water vessel is shown at Fig. 28, which 
is also of tin or iron, with round holes one inch diameter cut in 
before putting it together. A conical-shaped cover fits on top. 
Still another is shown at Fig. 29 : an inverted preserve can in a 



flower 
with a few 
or bits of 
d e r the 
two or 
shaped 
aro u n d 
Fig's 30 




Fig. 25. 



s au cer, 
old nails 
stone un- 
edge, or 
t hree a 
notches 
the edge, 
and 31 are 



stone-ware drinking fountains, very highly recommended by 
many who have tried them. All these watering arrangements 
should be placed in the shade, or protected in some way from the 
hot rays of the sun ; and they should be cleaned out and refilled 
regularly, morning and night. 

To return to the food: — one very highly recommended is "hoe- 
cake " — Indian meal stirred into water, and then put into the oven 



and baked, 
up, and feed 
as grain, 
thrive most 
upon it. The 
have a sys- 
plying ear- 
chicks with 
which in 
tions, might 
profit. They 
the ground, 
feet deep, 
with bricks 




Crumble it 
it the same 
Chickens 
excellently 
French 
tern for sup- 
ly hatched 
animal food 
some sec- 
be used with 
make pits in 
about three 
siding it up 
or boards 



Fig. 26. 

(an unused hot-bed would answer). Into this they put six inches 
of fresh horse manure, trampling it well down, and wetting it by 
pouring in pails of water; on this they place a layer of slaughter 
house refuse— blood, scraps of meat, intestines, etc.— two or three 
inches thick ; then another layer of manure, and again a layer of 
refuse, until the pit is full ; it is then covered by a foot of manure, 
and boards placed over that. In about three weeks time the pit 
is alive with maggots, which are fed to the chicks. Where much 



GREEN FOOD. 



41 



of this is desired, a succession of pits, ripening one after the 
other, must be made. 

At two weeks old, begin feeding cracked corn, wheat or buck- 
wheat at night. Up to this time the chicks should be fed six or 
seven times a day — every two or three hours ; after four weeks 
old, three times a day will be sufficient. 

In addition to this 



be added, occasion- 
rice ; small potatoes, 
and mixed with alit- 
bread crumbs and 
in milk or water ; in 
from the table 
given to them as 
enough. On t he 
abundant, scald the 
whey of curded 
curds in with it. 




' ' menu ", there may 
ally, feeds of boiled 
boiled and mashed, 
tie barley meal-, 
stale bread, steeped 
fact, all the scraps 
should be saved and 
soon as they are old 
farm, where milk is 
meal with \he hot 
milk, mixing the 
Into this a little red 



Fig. 27. 

pepper and powdered charcoal may occasionally be put. Vege- 
table food should always be given at least every other day ; lettuce, 
cabbage leaves chopped fine, a few carrots minced fine, onions also 
chopped, may be mixed with the scalded food, or given alone, 
nntil a week before killing, when the latter shouM be discontinued. 



Lettuce may be raised 
"flats " by gardeners), 
any sunny window, and 
of reach of frost, can 
artificial heat. Have 
within their reach, and 
old mortar, or broken 
If near the seashore, 
shells, throw them on 
burn them ; then break 
in the yards. The value 




in shallow boxes (called 
that can be started in 
if placed at night out 
be grown without any 
plenty of fine gravel 
also some lime rubbish, 
oyster or clam shells, 
get a few bushels of 
a pile of brush and 
them up and put them 
of table scraps, as food 
fowls, is rarely fully 



for both old and young 

estimated. If in the vicinity of a large hotel, the breeder would 

"be well repaid even in buying them and carting them home. 

The success of Mr. Warren Leland in his poultry raising was 
largely due to this supply of food. At that time he was one of the 
proprietors of the Metropolitan Hotel in New York City ; all the 
scraps from which, amounting to from fifteen to twenty barrels 
weekly, were sent to his farm and fed to the poultry and hogs. 

Dust baths are a necessity to the health of the chicks. Take 
shallow boxes, and put into them three or four inches of fine road 



42 



SHADE. 



dust or fine sand, in which mix a few handfuls of ashes, or the 
dust of tobacco leaves. Some recommend sulphur. It may be 
used, but very sparingly. Air-slaked lime is much safer, and 
nearly as effectual in killing or preventing vermin. 

While chickens can be grown on a bare run, still, grass runs are 
much better, and, if possible, they should have a few hours on the 



sod every 
supply of 
of some 
vised above 
measure 
lack of 
in winter 
spring has 
it had best 
ed, if one's 
will admit 




day. A good 
green food 
sort, as ad- 
will in some 
supply the 
grass, and 
and early 
to; but later 
be provid- 
facilities 
it. 



Fig. 29. 

The bare ground, if many chicks are raised, will soon become con- 
taminated. I advise turning it over frequently with a spade or 
plow. If with the spade, a certain portion daily, or half the plot 
semi- weekly. It is also a good practice to reserve a corner, and 
sow oats, buckwheat, or* clover on it (fencing it off from the rest 
of the plot) and letting the chicks on it when a few inches higti. 



A very excellent prac- 
in use in Clinton, Mass. , 
the yard with toma- 
chicks into it just as 
The vines furnish both 
is highly, relished. If 
not well provided with 
putting out low-grow- 
and gooseberry bushes ; 
will also thrive well in 




tice, which I once saw 
is to plant a portion of 
toes, and turn the 
the fruit is ripening, 
shade and food which 
the yards, or runs, are 
shade trees, I advise 
ing evergreens, currant 
peach and plum trees 
the poultry yard, and 
fruit. A quick shade 
ing a low, rough trel- 



bear yearly crops of 
may be made by mak- Fig. 30 

lis, and training quick-growing vines, such as morning-glorys, 
or gourds, over it. Rough, scraggy brush stuck into the ground 
will soon be covered by these vines, and make an excellent pro- 
tection from the hot summer sun. 

Crowding mast be avoided. This is a stumbling-block upon 
which many trip. It is not safe to put over seventy-five chicks 
into one brood (or one partition) , and it is much better to limit the 
number to fifty. At three weeks old these should be reduced in 
number to thirty or thirty-five. It is safer to divide the brooder 



-'.-j 



CLEANLINESS. 



43 



into two or three parts, and put twenty-five in each, than to have 
them all together. During the day they may all enjoy the same 
run, but at night they should be separated as above. 

Be careful in the use of the brooder not to give too much heat. 
The body heat of the hen is only 98°, and if the brooder is so ar- 
ranged that the chicks can get their backs against the warm tank, 
or pipes, they should not have more than that amount of warmth. 
If the chickens come out in the morning, looking as if they had 
passed through a sweat-bath, they have been kept too warm, and 
it will not take many repetitions of it to decimate the brood. 
The temperature of thcbrooder where the chickens nestle is much 
increased by the animal heat of the chicks themselves, and after 



the brood is a 
days old very 
heat is neces- 
quite cold 
After the first 
young chicks 
heat beyond 
Even during 
is an unusually 
season, the 
be transferred 
old to a sum- 
Such a one as 
and described 
be found well 




week or ten 
little artificial 
sary, except in 
nights or days, 
of May, the 
really need no 
the first week. 
April, unless it 
cold and wet 
chickens may 
at three weeks 
mer brooder, 
i s illustrated 
at Fig. 32 will 
suited for the 



Fig. 31. 

purpose ; or the brooder previously mentioned may be used with- 
out the heating arrangement. 

Cleanliness is imperative ; the brooders must be cleaned often, 
and the bottoms covered with dry earth or sand. Dampness must 
not be tolerated in the quarters assigned to the young broods ; it 
will be fatal to success. Feed cups and water vessels must be kept 
clean and sweet. Regularity in feeding must be observed ; a glut 
one day and a famine the next will soon bring disease. Never 
over-feed ; give what will be eaten up clean and no more. Have 
regular hours for feeding, and feed at such times. Vary the food 
to suit the weather ; in cold, damp weather give more animal food 
than in warm, dry days ; it is more nourishing. Do not allow any 
portion of the work to be slighted. Remember, the better you at- 
tend to them the better they will pay you. What is worth doing at 
all is worth doing well ; and, finally, always keep in mind these 
three requisites to success : Warmth, Cleanliness, and Regularity in 
Feeding. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Rearing Chickens to Adult Age. 



Thus far we have treated of the chickens as being raised to the 
age of broilers — six weeks to two months old. 

When carried beyond that age, either with a view for future 
market or breeding stock, they should be given more liberty, 
more range of run. No matter how rough the land, provided it 
is not infested with minks, weasels, rats, and other poultry ene- 
mies : a newly cleared piece of woodland makes an excellent run. 

For summer accommodations I would advise the erection of low 
sheds. These may be cheaply built, as follows : Set six posts into 
the ground, making a parallelogram six to eight feet wide and 




twelve long ; on the top of these posts, six feet from the ground, 
spike a plate piece of 3x5 inch timber, all around. Three feet be- 
iow this, halve in another piece for the floor ; roof it over with 
either tongued-and-grooved boards, or with rough pine boards laid 
like clapboards ; let the peak of the roof be three feet above the 
plate ; floor it with common pine or spruce boards ; the sides and 
ends may be of lath, placed one inch apart, or of wire cloth, two- 
inch mesh. A door should be placed in either one or both ends, 
with an inclined ladder from the ground for the birds to get up. 
The roosts, or perches, should be on a level, two feet above the 
floor. Whitewash the entire building inside and out. At night 
the doors should be closed, and the ladders raised, and the chicks 



FOOD AND WATER. 45 

are then safe from all four-footed enemies. They may be left to 
roost in such a shelter until the frosty nights of early November 
in this latitude, and will be all the better for it. 

To have them grow and thrive they must be continually em- 
ployed. A handful of wheat or oats in a sheaf of straw scattered 
over the ground will do them as much good as two "feeds of the 
best ground corn when thrown down on a hard and bare run. 
Chickens must never be allowed to mope or be idle ; they should 
be kept continually exercised. Better let them be a little scantily 
fed so that they will search for their food than to stuff them into 
laziness. When nearly time to market them fattening foods 
and methods may be used with good effect. You have then a 
frame to build upon, and the food produces the wished for results 
in the shortest possible time. 

Tincture of iron may now be given in the drinking water, or 
else use iron kettles for the drinking vessels ; it helps the growth 
of bone and feathers. 

In feeding, pursue about the same system as recommended in 
the preceding chapter, giving more whole grain though as the 
birds get older. 

The menu cannot be too much changed. Boiled vegetables with 
the meal mixed up dryly makes excellent feeding stuff; bread 
crusts and broken biscuits soaked in skim milk make chickens grow 
wonderfully fast. 

Green food is more important than most breeders acknowledge. 
Unless they have unlimited supplies of grass or vegetable food I 
should feed it to them often. 

Lettuce leaves and lawn mowings, finely minced up and mixed 
with some soft food, with a sprinkling of some tonic food, will 
often induce chickens to eat when nothing else seems to tempt 
them. Spiced foods and aromatic compounds I do not at all ad- 
vise for young stock. I think they do more harm than good, 
however useful they may be for stimulating in adult birds. Chick- 
ens so fed seldom make fine specimens, but become matured when 
they ought to be growing, and develop combs when the birds 
ought to be making flesh and bone. 

Water, too, is a very important item to their well-being. Chick- 
ens must have clean water, and they must have fresh water. I do 
not mean that stale water would kill a chicken, but I firmly be- 
lieve that water which stands from morning to morning does them 
harm. Eain water which is allowed to stand in the water tub does 
them harm. Water which can be found by the chickens in stag- 
nant puddles, or which drains from farmyards, does them harm, 



46 



FATTENING PENS. 



and when you give either food or drink which is hurtful they can- 
not thrive as they should. 

In fattening and preparing for market a very different treat- 
ment must be given. 

To give them delicacy of flesh make their principal food, for a 
week or ten days before killing, barley meal moistened with milk, 
occasionally alternating with Indian meal scalded with either 
water or milk. During this process the chicks had best be kept 
confined in a darkened room. If the business is conducted on a 
scale sufficiently large to warrant the expense, I should advise the 
use of a fattening house, with apparatus for "cramming". This 
process is better adapted to stock say six to eight months old, but 
may be used withvprofit on broilers from the sixth to the eighth 
week. 

I have in use a stack of fattening pens which, built on a larger 
scale, will be found very convenient. They are constructed under 
a shed, against the back side, are in three tiers, ten in each tier ; 
the apartments are each six inches wide, thirteen high and fourteen 
deep. The floor of each projects four inches in front, forming a 
shelf on which to place the food and water cups. An open space, 
four inches wide, is left at the back, through which the droppings 
pass to a trough on the ground underneath, which should be sup- 
plied with dry earth to absorb the moisture. Under the back part 
of the bottom tier is placed an inclined shelf, which throws the 
droppings forward into the trough. The front is formed of wire 
rods, three to each pen, passing through holes bored in top and 
bottom of pens. 

Such pens ensure quietness, which is one of the essentials to 
quick fattening. The pens are large enough for a fowl to stand up 
or sit down, but not roomy enough for them to turn aroune or ex- 
ercise. There is no fighting or restless exercise, and the fowls 
gain more in one week in such quarters than in two as ordinarily 
penned for fattening. 




CHAPTER VIII. 
Estimates of Costs and Profits. 

In considering this occupation as a business, it will be necessary 
to vary somewhat from our text, and introduce matters which, at 
first sight, may seem foreign to our subject ; but without these 
means of comparison we could not so plainly illustrate the benefit 
and profits of the artificial method. 

The only practical illustration of Artificial Incubation as a busi- 
ness venture, which we hav e in this country, is that of Mr. Baker, 
of New Jersey. 

His establishment is without doubt the largest in the world. It 
was fitted up and completed more like the hobby of a rich merchant 
than the ideas of a practical business man. Everything was built 
and finished expensively ; woodwork all planed ; galvanized wire 
netting dividing the runs; houses and runs fitted up like a gen- 
tleman's poultry yard for breeding exhibition fowls, and for show- 
ing to his wealthy visitors. The hatching house was most com- 
pletely equipped with every convenience — heated by steam or hot 
water, electrical communication with all the egg drawers and the 
hatching room ; and all seemingly regardless of economy in con- 
struction. The entire place, consisting of hatching house, twenty- 
five by fifty feet long, two stories and basement ; nursery — a dou- 
ble-pitch glass house, one hundred and fifty feet long, and thirty 
feet wide, fitted with stationary brooders and runs, each six by 
twelve feet ; the second house for more advanced chickens, four 
hundred and fifty feet long and twenty-four wide, with wire en- 
closed and covered runs outside ; fattening and cramming house, 
fitted with revolving fattening pens, holding about two thousand 
fowls ; slaughtering house ; packing house ; ice house, and roosting 
sheds, all said to cost in the neighborhood of eighty thousand 
dollars. 

When I visited the place, the capacity of the Incubators was 
fifty-six hundred eggs. Allowing a result of four thousand chicks 
from each hatching, and twelve and a half per cent, loss in rear- 



4S 



MR. BAKER S ESTABLISHMENT. 



ing, it gives a total of thirty-five hundred chicks every three 
weeks, or fifty-nine thousand five hundred per year ; these at an 
estimated average price of forty cents each will give a gross return 
of twenty-three thousand, eight hundred dollars. 

Against this, we have interest on investment, at six per cent, 
forty -eight hundred dollars; taxes and repairs, two percent, more, 
sixteen hundred dollars ; wages, six men, at five hundred dollars 
each per year, three thousand dollars ; feed, five thousand dollars ; 
coal, ice, etc., six hundred dollars, making a total of fifteen 
thousand dollars, and leaving a profit of eight thousand, eight 
hundred dollars for the year's operations. 

I believe that the building and fixtures necessary to raise and 
market that number of chickens may be constructed and fitted up 




at less than 
and probably 
amount said to 
pended above, 
conveniences 
ing arrange- 
have to be dis- 
as the extra 
would not 
the interest of 

I give the 
t rat ing what 
even with the 
of carrying 
load of inter- 
more moderate 
larger. 

The average cost of hatching and raising a chicken by artificial 
means to eight weeks old, is not over fifteen cents. At this age 
it should weigh (if forced) from one and one-half to two pounds. 

The cost of the next two months will be fully fifteen cents more, 
while the weight will not gain over one pound. It follows, there- 
fore, that the most of the profit comes from the first two months' 
care and feeding. Broilers at that age, in New York, Philadelphia, 
or Boston, will sell during April, May, and June, at from seventy- 
five cents to one dollar per pair, and sometimes as high as one 
dollar and fifty cents per pair early in the spring. At this rate 
there, is a large profit on the early-hatched broods ; and prices 
for good broilers (plump chickens under two pounds each) will 
usually hold up to fifty and sixty cents per pair until October. 



SELF-ACTING FEEDING HOPPER. 

outlay, the profits would be 



one-fourth, 
one-fifth, the 
have been ex- 
Some of the 
and labor-sav- 
ments might 
pensed with, 
labor involved 
probably equal 
investment, 
above as illus- 
may be done, 
disadvantage 
such a heavy 
est. With a 
proportionately 



INCUBATORS VS. HENS. 



49 



During the late fall and winter months, an Eastern breeder 
cannot hope to compete with the Western producer. Adult 
fowls can be raised there and marketed here (during cold weather) 
at much less figures than we at the East can do it. It is only by- 
improving the quality of the birds marketed, and getting them 
into market at an early age, that we can make a paying busi- 
ness of it. 

Bear in mind always that the profit on chickens is made by get- 
ting them fit for market at the earliest possible age. 

To do this, the breeder must avail himself of artificial means. 
It is an absolute necessity to success that he employ Incubators 
and brooders in connection with the natural method. I say "in 
connection with, " for I do not advise the nse of artificial means to 
the entire exclusion of the natural. .Taking, for instance, a busi- 
ness in which it is proposed to keep five hundred hens. These, at 
an average of one hundred and fifty eggs each, will give seventy- 



five thousand per 
hen to sit twice, 
her nest. We have 
thousand eggs, and 
thousand which we 
wise dispose of. 
of two hundred eggs 
could use all of this 
a total of fifty -three 
dred and fifty chick- 
hen to hatch ten i 
twenty chicks in all 
arid, making a total 




FEEDING HOPPER. 



year. Now, allow a 
thirteen eggs being 
then used thirteen 
have sixty-two 
are obliged to other- 
With six Incubators, 
capacity each, we 
surplus and produce 
thousand, five hun- 
ens. Allowing each 
chicks per sitting — 
— we have ten thous- 
of sixty-three thous_ 



and, five hundred and fifty. Now, the care of the six Incubators 
need not take over two hours per day, while the proper care of 
the hens, the necessary watching to see that they do not get off 
their nests, feeding, watering, cleaning the apartments and nests, 
etc. , would take fully as much time, and, if only one hundred 
hens were sitting at once, the time would extend through seven 
months, with a return of less than one-fifth that of the Incubators. 
In this we have given the hens credit for about seventy-seven per 
cent. , while the average hatch with the hens where large num- 
bers are kept and set is not over sixty per cent. Figuring at this 
latter percentage, we should get only seven thousand, eight hun- 
dred chickens, against thirty-one thousand, two hundred and 
thirty-seven which would be the equivalent for the Incubators for 
the same length of time. The Incubator we have credited with a 



50 BROODERS VS. NATURAL MOTHERS. 

hatch of eighty-seven and one-half per cent., while ninety and 
ninety -five per cent, are now frequent averages with the Incuba- 
tor that the writer is using. 

Returning to the natural method, we have five hundred hens, 
each of which is expected to hatch two broods of chickens, one 
hundred of which are supposed to sit and hatch every three weeks. 
Allow each hen to cover twenty chicks, we have fifty coops to pro- 
vide every three weeks. Each hen will run with her brood four 
weeks, and early in the spring the chicks must stay in the coop 
until six weeks old. For winter raising, which must be done, a 
house will have to be prepared, and the hens and coops kept in it. 
This will necessitate the use of one hundred and fifty coops, which 
at two dollars each will cost three hundred dollars. To this may 
also be added the cost of the house. If portable brooders were 
used, and the chicks taken from the hens as soon as hatched, and 
put into them, it would require twenty-five (25) brooders, which 
would cost three hundred and seventy-five dollars. These can be 
be used in an open shed. The cost would be about equal in both 
cases, while the labor in caring for them would be largely in favor 
of the brooders, in that with the coops there would be one hun- 
dred to be fed and shut up every night, against twenty-five of the 
brooders. Then again, with every coop and old hen, there is as 
much dirt and filth to be cleaned out every few days as there will 
be in a brooder for a month ; the hen fouling the coop more in one 
day than a brood of fifty chicks would in a week. In addition to 
this gain, is that of the use of the hen for five or six weeks, during 
which she may be made to produce twenty or twenty-five eggs. 

But discarding the portable brooder, and using a house as sug- 
gested above, the entire expense for the accommodation of the 
chicks hatched by that number of hens need not exceed five hun- 
dred dollars. The saving in labor alone, over the hen and coop 
system, would pay a large interest on the investment. 

To go into it as extensively as the above-mentioned estimates 
would necessitate, would preclude the use of hens and coops in 
rearing , and the artificial method would have to be adopted ; and 
while the first expense would have to be comparatively large, it 
would require a very small annual outlay to keep everything in 
working order. The saving of chicks from casualties, from ne- 
glect, by the hens pecking and tramping, has been found to more 
than repay the outlay, even in small poultry establishments. In 
large enterprises, the percentage of loss is always more, and this 
saving would consequently be greater. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Egg-Testers and Brooders, and Their Use. 



An egg-tester is almost indispensable to the breeder who hatches 
by artificial means. It maybe the simplest construction imagina- 
ble, or an expensive and complete apparatus. 

Of the first, perhaps that described in Wright's Illustrated Book 
of Poultry is the most simple: " A plate of tin or zinc to shade 
the light from the eyes, with an aperture cut in it the shape of the 
egg. The egg is held to the aperture, with the light brought 
closely to the other side ". 




Fig. 33. 



Next, perhaps, ^n simplicity is that shown by Fig. 33, which 
was devised by the writer about four years ago. It is made of a 
stiff piece of paper (dark color preferred), five inches long, six 
inches wide at one end and four and one-quarter at the other. 
This is rolled and joined together with a lap of half an inch, by 
either paste or a needle and thread, as shown in the cut. With 
this simple instrument the eggs can be examined at any time of 
day, and under any ordinary light. Its use is like a telescope — 
apply the smaller end to the eye, and hold the egg at or in the 
larger. 

An improvement on this has lately appeared. It consists of put- 
ting a piece on the small end like the mouthpiece of a fireman's 
trumpet, and fastening a piece of some flexible material over the 
large end, with an egg-shaped hole in the middle. Instead of 
paper, the tube is made of tin. 



52 



EGG-TESTERS. 



Fig. 34 illustrates a simple arrangement which may be made out 
of a small cigar box or a stiff paper box of similar size. On the 
bottom of the box place a piece of looking-glass of nearly or quite 
that size ; remove a strip from one end of the top, about an inch 
wide, and replace it at an angle of forty-five degrees, as shown in 
the engraving. Then cut one or more holes in the remaining por- 
tion of the top, about one and a half inches in diameter. The en- 
tire top (or else one end) should be loose, so as to get at the glass 
when it becomes soiled or dusty. To use it, put the eggs over the 
holes, and with the top of the box under a strong light, look into 
the opening, shielding the eyes by the strip set at right angles. 
The eggs will be reflected in the glass, and will appear clear or 
clouded, as the case may be. 

This last article is more particularly adapted to household pur- 



poses for 
eggs for 
use. Bad 
be imme- 
tected by 
an d re- 
For test- 
under in- 
however, 
t ical 1 y 
as barren 
can be 
told by its 




Fig. 34. 



testing 
culinary 
eggs may 
diately de- 
its use, 
j e c t e d . 
ing eggs 
cubation, 
it is prac- 
valueless, 
eggs only 
positively 
use. 



A more elaborate article is represented in "The Centennial Egg- 
Tester " — Fig. 35. This is a tin or metal case, nine inches high and 
six square, with a kerosene lamp inside, backecf by a reflector ; a 
tube of four or five inches long is opposite the reflector, on the 
end of which is a flexible covering with an egg-shaped hole, against 
which the egg is held. In a darkened room the interior of the egg 
is very distinctly shown, and the life of the embryo may be traced 
until the egg becomes quite opaque. 

The "Utility Egg-Tester", Fig. 36, is another desirable style. 
An ordinary policeman's or bull's-eye lantern is the formation of 
the apparatus. A tube of several inches long is placed over the 
lens, and another is telescoped over that, the latter having the 
usual flexible cover and opening. By moving the outer tube in or 
out the light may be focussed on the egg, and its interior made 
very plain. 

The outer slide being detachable, leaves the lantern free for use 
about the house or place. 



BROODERS OR ARTIFICIAL MOTHERS. 



53 



Every fancier who has given it a thorough trial has arrived at 
the same conclusion as ourself , that there is no way of raising 
chickens so healthful and economically as by means of the Arti- 
ficial Mother or Brooder. • 

This will, before many years, be regarded as an indispensable 
attachment to every poultry yard. With the fancier in a small 
way, who can keep only a few hens, it will be popular, because he 
can take the chicks from the nest and place them in the mother, 
and either re-set the hen, or turn her out, and in a week or so have 
her laying again. Another advantage is in the saving of coops. 
The young chicks may be put into the mother as they are hatched, 
not necessarily together, but at different times and of different 
ages — one, two or three weeks apart. 

The large breed- 



an advantage in 
and an additional 
feed. Young 
do better on a 
the fowls. It may 
feed hard boiled 
day or two, or 
ly expensive food, 
with the chickens 
fully one-half of 
pared food. The 
will find it of the 
use ; in one season 
value of several 




er also will find 
this last respect, 
one in the item of 
chicks need, and 
finer feed than 
be de;sirable to 
eggs for the first 
some other equal- 
Where the hen is 
she usually eats 
this specially pre- 
breeder of Games 
greatest possible 
he would gain the 
"mothers" in the 



saving of many of his young chicks from being picked to death 
by savage hens with broods of their own. How often many of us 
have felt like wringing the neck of some cross biddy upon finding 
her savagely picking (perhaps for the tenth time or more) the head 
off of some unfortunate chick, belonging to another brood, which 
had strayed into her coop ! 

Cleanliness is another very important consideration. One hen 
will soil the coop more in one day than fifty chicks in a week, and 
the droppings of the former always carries with it more or less 
waste of food. 

Quick growth is desirable in all breeds, and nothing promotes it 
so much as warmth and freedom from vermin. The absence of 
the hen secures the freedom from lice, if the chicks are greased 
when taken from the nest, and if a warming attachment is used 
the chicks, will huddle under the fleece during cool weather, re- 
maining out only long enough to eat and drink. 



54 



BROODERS OR ARTIFICIAL MOTHERS. 



We often see a hen with her brood of chicks standing around 
the coop, all drawn up with the cold, peeping and crying to be 
brooded, while the old biddy is intent only on filling her crop, or 
fretting at her confinement ; and when allowed to range, many is 
the brood of chicks entirely lost by being dragged through the wet 
grass in the early morn, until one after another drops off, wet and 
chilled through. 

Brooders, or Artificial Mothers, are not a recent invention. 
Keaumur, in *1777, used an "Artificial Hen " made of a box, one 
end of which was provided with a sheepskin fastened on an in- 
cline ; the box was covered with horse manure, leaving only one 
end open for the entrance of the chickens ; a small portion of the 
top next the open end was covered with glass, so as to give light 
and air to the chickens. 

About the commencement of the present century M. Bonnemain, 
another Frenchman, devised an Artificial Mother, in which hot 
water was used as the heating medium ; this was conveyed through 

four pipes, placed 
above the level of 




nels were attach- 
fixed as to furnish 
chicks to get their 
little later M. Car- 
an aparatus, of 
and 38 are illus- 
ring to the cut, A 
case for warm 
tube for filling 
C, the flannel 



the "Mother" in 

a v e r y little 

the floor. Flan- 

ed to them, so 

a soft body for the 

backs against. A 

bonnier devised 

which Figs. 37 

trations. Befer- 

is a zinc tank or 

water; B, the 

the tank, and 

nel (in this case a piece of sheepskin) under which the chickens 

hover. The top of the case or box, in which the tank is placed, is 

of glass, arranged to slide, so as to open at pleasure. Three holes 

are provided on each side for ventilation, and a door at the end 

to keep them in when desired. This was the pioneer of the 

' ' Hydro Mothers ". The trouble of refilling the tank several times 

daily with hot water was the principal objection to its use. 

The Centennial Brooder, shown on page 37, Fig. 20, was invented 
by the writer about twelve years ago, but was not made in its 
present shape until a few years since. It consists of a tank and 
boiler, the connecting pipes so arranged that the water is kept in 
constant circulation. A small kerosene lamp heats the water in 
the boiler. The tank is placed in an inclined position, with a flan- 
nel cloth below it for the chicks to nestle under. The whole is en- 
closed in a wooden box, with a glass cover over the front, and a 



THE CENTENNIAL BROODER. 



55 



metal one over the tank and lamp. Ventilation is provided on all 
sides. The cost of using a Brooder of this style, accommodating 
one hundred to one hundred and twenty -five chickens, is about 
one-half cent per day for oil. It can be used in the open air, as 
the chicks are perfectly protected by the glass and metal covering, 
and the lamp so placed that the wind does not extinguish it. The 
tank does not need to be refilled more than once or twice during 
the season. It is manufactured by the writer at Bye, N. Y. 

A somewhat similar affair is shown at Fig. 39 — the Graves Arti- 
ficial Mother. This was provided with a so-called self -regulating 
attachment, intended to prevent the heat rising too high. For a 

apparatus 
successful, 



while this 
was fairly 
but the reg- 
ting quick- 
der, it was 
aside. The 
Brooder" is 
invention, 
the invent- 
the only 




ulator get- 
ly out of or- 
soon laid 
"Perfect 
another late 
for which 
or claims 
perfect imi- 



FlG. 37. 

tation of the hen nestling her brood. It is a long, low box, with 
glass doors on top — a miniature hot-bed frame, in fact. Running 
lengthways, inside the box, are several iron pipes, through which 
a circulation of warm water is kept up by means of a small boil- 



er at one 
by a kero- 
Under the 
usual brood- 
This appar- 
i n gl y an 
of Bonne- 
ficial Moth- 




^ fg n *S » 



■.»„.,.■'(,?>>■> »;S5aL 






Fig. 38. 



end, heated 
sene lamp, 
pipe is the 
ing cloth, 
atus is seem- 
adaptation 
main's Arti- 
er. 



The Eclipse Artificial Mother, manufactured at Waltham, Mass., 
is another invention for the same purpose, and is shown at 
Fig. 40. 

The manufacturer says of it: " A full description of our Arti- 
ficial Mother is unnecessary, as the cut above shows exactly what 
it is. They are even of more importance to a large breeder than 
an Incubator, for by using them a much larger per cent, of chicks 
can be raised. 

"The essentials in an artificial mother or brooder are: First, a 
provision for furnishing the proper heat above the chickens; sec- 
ond, a good method of ventilation; third, a perfect freedom from 



56 



THE ECLIPSE ARTIFICIAL MOTHER. 



harboring-places for vermin, and a simple arrangement of attach- 
ment by which the fleece or woolen lining may be removed and 
cleansed readily at any time. 

" The Eclipse Artificial Mother meets all these requirements; and 
it. is the simplest, most portable, easiest managed machine of any, 
for this use, that we have seen. The heat may be supplied or 
withdrawn at any time, and its form is such that chickens brood 
in it with perfect immunity from the stifling and crowding which 
is the bane of many artificial mothers ". 

Among for- 
ions in this 
Eeaumur's 



eign mvent- 
line we have 
hot air brood- 
ing appara- |||Jj|||| ■--..■ 'IBBp tus, illustrat- 
ed by Fig. 41. ^^^^g^^^^^^^^^-^^ 5 *^'" " This consists 
of a small ~*kwi*.'s* stove, heated 
by an oil or Fig. 39. spirit lamp, 
the heat being caused to radiate under a sheepskin before escap- 
ing; a circular rim covered with glass surrounded the heating at- 
tachment, and outside of this were placed long, movable boxes, 
which could be Covered with wire or left open on top. It answered 
a very good purpose, but was too expensive for general use. 





Fig. 40. 

Mrs. Frank Cheshire's Artificial Mother is shown by Figs. 42, 
43 and 44, the first being a front view, showing the curtain, which 
is made of narrow pieces of woolen or flannel. S, Fig. 43, is the lamp 
which burns naptha through a long tube inserted into an arched 
chamber of the tank, the flame of which is shown at E, Fig. 44. 
A B, Fig. 44, is the tank, filled with water, over which is a cover- 
ing of wood, felt, or other substance. KK shows side views of 
the brooding cloth, hanging in strips like the curtain in Fig. 42. 
This brooder is very highly commended by English fanciers. 



CHRISTY S I>YDR0 MOTHER. 



57 



Christy's Hydro Kearing Mother, illustrated by Fig. 45, is the 
latest English invention in this line. In principle it is similar to 
the invention of M. Carbonnier, the heating part being a large 
metal tank, which is to be filled twice daily, or as often as neces- 
sary, with hot water. Under the tank the chickens nestle, pro- 
tected on the outside by curtains of flannel cloth. An enclosed 
run surrounds the 4 ' mother " proper, of sufficient height to keep 




Fig. 41. 
the chicks within bounds. This is provided with sliding doors, to 
allow them exit. The tank is filled through the pipe C, and the 
cold water drawn off through the faucet at B. 
These comprise about all the brooders worthy of special men- 





■)-.k M-*~> 




Fig. 42. 
tion. There are a few other kinds, but so little different from 
those already described that they need not be illustrated. 

The value and benefit of the Brooder to the fancier and breeder 
is aptly described by Mr. L. Wright, in these words: 

' ' First, great economy of hens, as immediately after hatching 
they may have a second lot of eggs given to them, or be at once 
returned to the breeding house ; in which case the first eggs laid 



58 



ADVANTAGES IN USE OF BROODERS. 



will be fertile, while, if a hen brings up her chicks, she passes three 
weeks at least with them before laying, and her eggs are valueless 
for hatching until four or five days after her return to the breed- 
ing pen. Second, economy of food, as all eggs, grits, and other 



dainty food 
chicks. Special 
very young 
given in a 
through which 




Fig. 43. 



goes to the 
dainties for 
ones are easily 
feeding coop, 
the larger 



ones cannot pass. Hens, besides consuming much and destroy- 
ing more, often prevent their broods from taking that which is 
thought most desirable for them. Third, economy of labor in 



feeding and 
there is always 
commodation 
days. Fourth, 
ances, since 
their train of 
ain and feed- 
dispensed 




Fig. 44. 



cleaning, while 
capital dry ac- 
for all on wet 
saving of appli- 
coops, with 
drinking f ount- 
ing dishes, are 
with. Fifth, 



the extreme tameness of chicks. A hen often prevents her brood 
feeding till the attendant has gone ; but, under this system, little 
chirpers of three or four days old will run and flutter up to who- 




FiG. 45. 

ever has the charge of them while they never seem to quarrel or 
fight. Sixth, the accidents to which little nestlers are subject, 
from the timidity or clumsiness of the mothers, are entirely 
avoided. How many have to bewail chicks trampled to death ; 
while often sickness, terminating fatally, is but the result of some 



INCREASED SIZE. 



59 



internal injury, of which the hen has been the author. Seventh, 
increased size. Notes carefully taken of weights and ages during 
four seasons show that, during 1870 and 1871, by the natural 
system our chicks only attained the weight in twelve weeks which, 
during 1872 and 1873, under the artificial system, they reached in 
ten, though this partially is due, no doubt, to selection. Eighth, 
better feathering and stronger health, arising, probably, from 
nestling as often as desired. The second is proved by our loss of 
one chicken during 1872, and of not even one during 1873. Ninth, 
increased cleanliness of chicks, whose beautiful down retains its 
utmost purity until it is replaced by feathers. Tenth, the pos- 
sibility of raising broods very early in the year, since they can 
nestle until eight or ten weeks old, if they will ". 




CHAPTER X. 
Incubators. 

The earliest record we have of hatching by artificial means is 
mentioned by Herodotus, about 450 years B. C. , in his reference 
to the egg ovens of Egypt. 

They are also mentioned by subsequent historians, but it is not 
until A. D. 1494, nearly two thousand years after, that we find 
anything like an intelligent description of how they were con- 
structed. In that year Alphonse II. , King of Naples, established 
an Egyptian Incubator, and during the same year the Duke of 
Florence imported an Egyptian who was skilled in the art, and 
constructed an incubator after the Egyptian pattern. Neither of 
them were successful, however, owing to the difference in climate 
between the two countries. These 

EGYPTIAN EGG OVENS, 

according to the early descriptions, were built of mud, or adobe ; 
in later years they <made them of brick, which were, in fact, sun- 
dried mud. They are described as consisting of two parallel rows 
of small ovens, and cells for fire, divided by a narrow, vaulted pas- 
sage ; each oven being about nine or ten feet long, eight feet wide, 
and five or six feet high, and having above it a vaulted fire-cell of 
the same size, or rather less in height. Each oven communicates 
with the passage by an aperture large enough for a man to enter. 
Fig. 46 gives a sectional view of the passage way and the ovens 
on each side. These are all under ground, and connected with the 
outer air by a long, ceiled passage, so as to avoid cold drafts. The 
small circular openings seen in the cut are about three feet in diam- 
eter ; each orifice, or mouth, leads by a short arched passage into 
the oven. These ovens are not quite circular, but nearly so ; the 
roofs are domed, and contrived with a kind of chamber over them ■ 
the apertures leading to the fire-chambers are the same width as 
the openings to the ovens, and only high enough to admit a boy to 
pass through. From each fire-chamber there is likewise a com- 



EGG OVENS OF EGYPT. 



61 



munication with the oven to which it belongs. In the domed roofs 
of the ovens, and in the roof of the room, there are holes that can 
be opened or closed at pleasure ; these serve the twofold purpose of 
letting out the smoke, and letting in air and a dim, hazy light. 

Fig. ,47 shows the process of heating the ovens. The material 
employed for heating is called gelleh— dung collected and dried for 
the purpose, which is kept smouldering slowly in the fire-cham- 
bers above the eggs. Water is supplied in troughs made of mud 
bricks, encircling the eggs. 

The climate of Egypt is specially suited for this method, in being 
almost of uniform temperature, and the men who follow the busi- 
ness are bred to it from childhood. This, as the Maamal of later 
days, demands constant attention, and the attendant on the 
ovens literally lives in them during the time they are in operation. 




Fig. 46. 

This egg-hatching is said to be carried on only during the months 
of April, May and June. The eggs are supplied by the peasantry, 
and there are two systems of purchase. Under one system, the 
hatcher pays down an agreed sum to the peasant for eggs ; under 
the other, the owner of the eggs leaves them with the hatcher at 
his own risk, the latter agreeing to return one chicken for every 
two eggs. 

According to statistics given during the last decade, the business 
is still one of large national importance, the number of establish- 
ments for the hatching of fowls' eggs in Lower Egypt being given 
as one hundred and five, and in Upper Egypt as ninety-nine. The 
number of eggs hatched in Lower Egypt is 13,069,733, and the num- 
ber spoiled 6,255,867. In Upper Egypt the number hatched is 
4,349,240, while the entire number spoiled is 2,529,660. In several 
works which refer to this subject these ovens are called ' 'Maamals'\ 



62 ARTIFICIAL HATCHING IN CHINA. 

This is incorrect, the latter name being correctly applied to a 
peculiar portable stove sometimes used for the same purpose. 

In China artificial hatching has been practiced for centuries, and 
probably as long or longer than in Egypt. The stories told of the 
system of incubation there seem hardly credible, and, although 
probably describing what the narrators saw and heard, are defi- 
cient in some points that were kept from their knowledge. 

In "Minturn's Travels", he says: "On our return from the 
gardens we stopped at an egg-hatching establishment. This was 
a large wooden, barn-shaped building on the river bank. The eggs 
are purchased out of the produce boats that come down the river, 
and are here artificially hatched. The process employed is singu- 
lar, as using only the natural heat of the egg, and is as follows : 
Large baskets, each twice the size of an ordinary barrel, and 
thickly lined with hay to prevent the loss of heat, are filled with 
the eggs, and then carefully closed with a closely-fitting cover of 
twisted straw. The eggs are now left for three days, after which 
they are removed from the basket and replaced in different order — 




Fig. 47. 
those eggs which were before on the surface being now on the low- 
est tier. At the end of three days more the position of the eggs 
is again altered, and so on for fifteen days, after which time the 
eggs are taken out of the basket and placed on a shelf in another 
apartment, and covered with bran. In the course of a day or two 
the chicken bursts its shell and makes its way out of the bran, 
being at once taken charge of by an attendant, who is always on 
the watch. The whole secret of the process is in the fact that the 
the animal heat of the whole mass of eggs being retained by the 
basket, which is formed of materials that do not conduct caloric, 
is sufficient to support the animal life of any one particular egg, 
and to foster its development ". 

CHINESE HATCHING BASKETS. 

Another traveler describes what he saw as follows : 
"The hatching house was built at the end of the cottage, and 
was a kind of long shed, with mud walls thickly thatched with 



CHINESE HATCHING BASKETS. 



63 



straw. Along the ends and down one side of the building were a 
number of round straw baskets, well plastered with mud to pre- 
vent them from taking fire. In the bottom of each basket there 
was a tile placed, or rather the tile forms the bottom of the basket. 
Upon this the fire acts— a small fireplace being below each basket. 
Upon the top of each basket there is a straw cover, which fits 
closely, and which is kept shut while the process is going on. In 
the centre of the shed are a number of large shelves placed one 
above another, upon which the eggs are laid at a certain stage of 
the process. When the eggs are brought they are put into the 
baskets, the fire is lighted below them, and a uniform heat kept 
up, ranging, as nearly as I could ascertain by some observations 




-W-& 



Fig. 48. — bonnemain's incubator. 
vfhich I made with the thermometer, from ninety-five to one hun- 
dred and two degrees— but the Chinamen regulate the heat by 
their own feelings, and therefore it will, of course, vary consider- 
ably. 

In four or five days after the eggs have been subject to this 
temperature they are taken carefully out to a door, in which- a 
number of holes have been bored nearly the size of the eggs; they 
are then held one by one against these holes, and the Chinamen 
look through them, and are able to tell whether they are good or 
not. If good, they are taken back and replaced in their former 
quarters ; if bad, they are of course excluded. In nine or ten days 
after this— that is, about fourteen days from the commencement— 
the eggs are taken from the basket and spread out on the shelves. 
Here no fire heat is applied, but they are covered over with cot- 
ton, and a kind of blanket, under which they remain about four- 
teen days more— when the young ducks burst their shells, and the 
shed teems with life ". 



64 



REAUMUR S APPARATUS. 



There is but little doubt that part, and that perhaps the princi- 
pal portion, of the hatching process was kept from the sight of 
these narrators, for it is exceedingly improbable that any process 
so directly antagonistic to the natural system could be success- 
fully carried out. Doubtless there was some unseen means of 
keeping the eggs warm, as it is impossible that the egg should ^of 
itself possess sufficient heat to sustain life, much less develop it. 

REAUMUR'S HATCHING APPARATUS. 

No further record of any invention for artificial hatching comes 
to our notice until the year 1777, when Reaumur, the celebrated 
French naturalist, constructed his apparatus for hatching by 
means of horse manure, except a " little portable oven " described 
by Oliver de Serres, a noted French agriculturist, as being heated 
by four lamps and the eggs covered with feathers. Of the date 
of this, however, we have no knowledge. 

F 




FIG. 49. — AMERICAN EGG HATCHING MACHINE. 

Reaumur's apparatus was quite successful in the hands of the 
naturalist, but with others it did not do as well, probably owing 
to lack of attention and knowledge of the requisite care. His 
apparatus was simply wooden casks fitted with drawers or mova- 
ble shelves, on which the eggs were placed, the whole surrounded 
with fresh horse manure, which was renewed at intervals to keep 
up the heat. 

BONNEMAIN'S INCUBATOR. 

The next invention we find is that of M. Bonnemain, who was 
the first to use hot water to warm the eggs. Fig. 48 is a sectional 
view of his machine, in which a represents the boiler ; b the box 



BONNEMAIN S INCUBATOR. 



65 



or room in which the heating apparatus is placed ; d the tubes for 
circulating the hot water ; e the funnel end of the supply tube ; 
and / an exhaust pipe to carry off the steam should the water get 
too hot : c is a box through which passes an extension of the lower 
coil of pipe, under the returning tube of which is fixed a piece of 
sheepskin for a brooder for the chicks. M. Bonnemain also used 
sponges saturated with water in the bottom of the egg chamber, 
to supply moisture to the air. He also constructed a regulating 
bar, formed of two different metals, (probably iron and brass), 
which acted upon a damper in the furnace door, thus increasing 
or decreasing the draft of the fire. 
The eggs were lain on slides as shown in the illustration. The 




Fig. 50. — carbonnier's incubator. 
Incubator was not a success, owing to the impossibility of keep- 
ing the temperature even on the different slides. 

THE ECCALEOBION. 

Next after Bonnemain's, as near as we can tell, was an inven- 
tion which was shown in London, and called an Eccaleobion : this 
was heated by steam pipes, with jugs of water in the egg cham- 
bers to keep the air moist. 

In 1842, a small machine was exhibited in operation at Bristol, 
Eng. , by a Mr. Appleyard ; we have no description of it. About 
the same time one was exhibited by Mr. E. Bayer, in New York 
and Brooklyn, called the 

POTOLOKIAN. 

And between this and 1845, a Mr. L. G. Hoffman of Albany, in- 
vented and had in operation, the 

AMERICAN EGG HATCHING MACHINE, 

of which Fig. 49 is an illustration. This is a box two and a half 



66 



Hoffman's and cantelo's machine. 



feet long and two wide, enclosing a metal tank or cistern of water, 
R R. R., which is connected with the boiler on the left of the 
tank by two tubes. The boiler bottom is a long cone reaching 
nearly to the top, which gives a large heating surface to the spirit 
lamp which supplies the heat. The egg drawers are entirely en- 
closed and surrounded by the hot water cistern. The tank is fill- 
ed through the tube F. The machine stands on a box, in which 
may be noticed an inclined board, the under side of this is lined 
with sheepskin and serves as an artificial mother. The end of the 
board is held up by a weighted cord, and may be raised or lowered 
to suit the size of the chickens. 



cantelo's 

Oantelo in I g^^f^^^ ^ 
ed a fairly sue- 
about this time, 
attempt to imi- 
process of ap- 
from above. It 
a very simple 
ing a tank with 
india rubber; 
eggs under- 
ed up so that 
in contact with Fig 
cloth. The 




INCUBATOR. 

s^fgs^i England, show- 
cessf ul machine 
It was the first 
tate the natural 
plying the heat 
is described as 
apparatus ; be- 
a bottom of 
the drawers of 
neath are press- 
the eggs come 
the rubber 
water is caused 



—SECTIONAL VIEW CARBON 
NIER'S INCUBATOR. 



to circulate by means of a stove placed at one side. 

Minasi's Incubator, contemporary with Cantelo, was a more 
elaborate affair. A boiler heated by a naptha or spirit lamp, all 
enclosed in an upright box, communicated heat to a reservoir or 
tank of water. The under side of this tank was corrugated, so as 
to support by the aid of wires, a series of small narrow sand-bags, 
against which the eggs were pressed by springs under the drawers. 

This device was abandoned and a series of tubes substituted, 
through which the hot water circulated. The eggs were placed on 
these tubes, which were close enough together to prevent the eggs 
from falling through. The machine was too elaborate to become 
popular. 

ADRIEN & TRIOCHE'S INCUBATOR. 

Similar to Minasi's first machine, was one constructed by Adrien 
& Trioche, at Van Girard, France, in 1848. This also had the rub- 
ber cloth bottom to the water tank, supported on rods of wood. 
A sheet iron cylinder, heated by a charcoal fire, supplied the tank 
with hot water. The top of the tank was covered with sand, so as 



ADRIEN & TRIOCHE's INCUBATOR. 



67 



to retain the heat. This Incubator was ten feet long by three and 
a half wide. The drawers were in two ranges, placed back to 
back ; the bottoms of the drawers were of perforated tin or fine 
wire cloth, covered with bran to keep the eggs level. The machine 

q 71 




held fifteen hundred eggs, from which the inventors claimed a re- 
sult of twelve hundred chicks. It required attention every four 

hours. 

carbonnier's incubator 

which appeared about this time, was a very simple affair. Fig. 50 



68 



CARBONNIER S INCUBATOR. 



represents the Incubator, with the drawer containing the eggs; 
partly drawn out. Fig. 51 shows a section of the same, in which 
— A, is the zinc case for water— B, Thermometer — C, Non-con- 
ducting filling — D, Drawer, with eggs, and E, the Lamp. * 

The upper part of the box contains a zinc reservoir, with a space 
left, as Jlffllll shown in 

the draw- ^Mwilw * n ^' ^ or ^ e 

introduc- /IlSlilll % ^ on °^ ^ e 

lamp, and a II /hH|1| || small tube 

passing iWlllBSSli II through the 

serves for' | ilSiSIiilllfm'^S ill '' '■ ; -ISP^ filling it 
with water, f.fllffl and a ^ so ^ or 
holding a li 11BB thermome- 
ter, which, iJltSw I'l plunged in- 
to the water lll^mw^Fw/Mlf //fj/ I 111 below, indi- 
cates the Ill^^^mWmf m/ff 1 111 ^ tempera- 
ture. Ther- If Siliill I tit ° mo meter 
tubes may /f JIIB m III I w ^ e 0D ^ ame( ^ 
and held in iilllllt lifl § position 
continually Ell III W^^^K £ byinsert- 

neath the Ml ^^S^Bj)M iKiKM^ £ reservoir; 
it is provid- / // MMS^^^MM \\M \ ed with * w0 

t i o n, and Wjj /■ Jjjjlllij IK holds about 

tliermome- / // -IBK -IS | T 1JR I if ^er ^ s a ^ so 
indicate the ' I jlMf ^^^j Mm H tempera- 
rounding 'ijJm^^ ^^^^ f J'^w ^hjj the egg. A 

reservoir ^ a n d o n 

three sides of the drawer, for a filling of sawdust or other non- 
conducting material. A flat tin lamp, with two round Avicks, is 
used by the inventor, but a properly constructed kerosene burn- 
er would answer the purpose. A little soft hay is spread in the 
bottom of the drawer ; the eggs are put in ; it is then closed and 



VALLEE S HATCHER 



69 



-warmed by the water above. The temperature of the water is 
kept at 122°, or enough higher or lower to keep the eggs at 104° to 
106°. Once or twice each day the drawer is opened, and the eggs 
turned and left for a quarter of an hour in the open air before 
replacing. 

VALLEE'S EGG-HATCHER. 

This machine is shown at Fig. 52. It is probably one of the most 
successful of the many French inventions. One of them was on 
exhibition for a long time at the Museum of Natural History, in 
Paris, and gave a very fair percentage in hatching. 

In the illustration L is a cylinder, with a flue O, through which 
passes the flame of the lamp which supplies the heat. This cylin- 
der is, in fact, the holler, connected by a tube to a tank or reser- 
voir over the egg-drawer D. From the further end of the case a 



pipe G, 
ing un- 
d rawer, 
the wa- 
I) oil e r 
and thus 
Tip a cir- 
A i s a 
ing tube 
centre of 
D, and C 
er of the 
JB, where 




returh- 
der the 
carries 
tertothe 
again, 
keeping 
dilation, 
ventilat- 
from the 
drawer 
the cov- 
nursery 
young 



Fig. 54.— SCHRODER'S incubator. 
chicks are placed after hatching. Eis the sliding door of another 
apartment, also for the chicks of a few days old, and F a loose bot- 
tom to be drawn out and cleaned daily. H is a wooden drum or 
l>ox enclosing the boiler, and shielding it from sudden drafts of air, 
which might extinguish the lamp. T is the tube through which 
the boiler and reservoir are filled with water. The thermometer is 
laid in the drawer with the eggs. 

This machine is still in use in some parts of France. Within a 
few years a mercurial regulating attachment has been affixed to 
it, which has much increased its efficiency. It is, however, one 
of the class of machines which cannot be safely left many hours 
without danger of overheating. 

A number of Vallee's machines have found their way to Amer- 
ica. Dr. Preterre, of New York City, had one, with which he was 
very successful. His apparatus was connected with an electrical 
bell, which signalled an alarm whenever the heat exceeded the 
proper limit. It was exhibited by the Doctor a number of times 



70 



BRINDLEy's AND STUART WORTLEY's. 



before the American Institute, and also at the poultry shows in N. 
Y. City, and in 1870 the N. Y. State Poultry Society awarded him 
a gold medal. 

brindley's incubator. 

This machine is represented at Fig. 53. F is a copper boiler, 
heated by either gas or lamp B, which is furnished with a reser- 
voir to ensure an even height of oil and a steady flame. Con- 
nected with the boiler are a number of iron pipes, arranged hori- 
zontally between two glass plates, through which the hot water 
circulates; the space between these glass plates being enclosed on 



all sides, forms a 
Under the lower 
er O, lined with 
tains the eggs. On 
lamp, at A, are 
which the chicks 
placed after being 
egg drawer. The 
provided with a 
upon by the expan- 
a balanced tube, 
ulator was very 
same, as that used 

COL. STUART WORT- 

About the same 
described appeared 
ley's machine. It 
long, low, saddle- 




hot air chamber, 
plate slides a draw- 
felting, which con. 
each side of the 
small chambers in 
are temporarily 
removed from the 
hot air chamber is 
safety valve, acted 
sion of mercury in 
This valve and reg- 
similar, if not the 
by M. Yallee. 

ley's incubator. 

time as the one just 
-= Col. Stuart Wort- 



JB was described as a 
§P backed boiler, over 
which was a steam Fig. 55. — the moll pitcher dome and escape 
valve. At a short incubator. distance, and con- 

nected with the boiler by a pipe, was a reservoir, thus ensuring a 
uniform height of water. A glass gauge was placed alongside 
the dome to indicate the height of the water. A tank, the same 
length and height of the boiler, is connected with it by pipes of 
perhaps two feet long. These pipes pass through padded holes into 
the upper part of the egg chamber, the boiler being outside. The 
degree of heat is regulated by sliding the tank and pipes in or out, 
as may be needed, thus increasing or decreasing the radiating sur- 
face. A lamp or gas jet was placed under the saddle of the boiler. 
and the water kept constantly boiling, by which it was supposed 
the heat in the drawer would always be uniform. 



SCHRODER S TNCUBATOR. 



71 



This machine, while possessing some good points, was too costly, 
as well as too complicated, to receive much attention. 

SCHRODER'S INCUBATOR. 

Fig. 54 gives a view of this machine, which was the invention of 
of the manager of the National Poultry Company, Bromley, 
England. 

A separate boiler A, heated by a lamp or gas jet, is connected 
by the tube B to the hot water tank C, through which the water 
circulates, and passing out at the opposite side, is conveyed through 
the pipe D back to the boiler. The tank has an open tube I, in which 




Fig. 56.— halsted's automatic incubator. 
a thermometer is suspended. A ventilating flue H is also provided. 
Under the tank are the egg drawers EE, which are the shape of a 
quadrant of a circle. The bottom of the drawers are of perfor- 
ated metal or fine wire cloth, and kept partly filled with chaff. 
Under the drawers is a tank of cold water. The space G above 
the hot water tank is surrounded by perforated zinc or wire cloth, 
and partly filled with' sand ; this serves the double service of pre- 
serving the heat and a warm chamber for the newly hatched 
chickens. Curtains are arranged to be drawn around the appar- 
atus to shield it from cold drafts. 

The mode of testing the heat in the drawer through the temper- 
ature of the water was a serious obstacle to the success of this 
machine, and the lack of a regulating apparatus a still more 
serious defect; still it had, in careful hands, a fair measure of 
success. It was found necessary to interchange the egg drawers 



72 



THE MOLL PITCHER AND AMERICAN INCUBATORS. 



frequently, as the heat varied in different parts of the egg cham- 
ber. ( 

This machine was also too elaborate and costly to meet general 
favor. 

About 1866 the subject of Incubators received a new impetus 
in America. Among the first which claimed public notice at this 
period was 

THE MOLL PITCHER INCUBATOR. 

As first constructed and shown in New York in the fall of 1867, 



this was 
and some- 
in construct- 
lee's m a- 
It was af ter- 
structed, and 
like our illus- 
55. The case 
divided into 
partments — 
for the lamp ; 
hot air cham- 
the eggs are 
tiers, and the 
per one, 




Fig. 57. 



made of zinc 
what similar 
ion to Val- 
chine. 

ward recon- 
made in form 
tration, Fig. 
is of wood, 
three com 
the lower one 
the second, a 
ber in which 
p 1 aced in 
third or up- 
a r ran ged 



as an artificial mother for the chicks. A ventilating flue from the 
egg chamber is seen above. The artificial mother is ventilated by 
the sliding valves near the top, as shown in the cut. There is no 
regulating 



the m a - 
quiring 
tention and 
of the lamp 
as the heat 
high or too 




apparatus, 
chine re- 
hourly at- 
the turning 
up or down, 
gets too 
low. 



THE AMERICAN INCUBATOR 

was shown the following year at the exhibition of the Pennsyl- 
vania State Poultry Society, in Philadelphia. It was a zinc tank, 
with a boiler under the centre and opening into the tank, heated, 
by a kerosene lamp. On each side of the boiler was an egg drawer, 
and also two more over the tank, with an open space of two inches 
between them. Under the last two, and between them and the 
tank, were interposed shields of wood placed on an incline, and 
opening in the middle into the open space between the drawers. 



halsted's automatic incubator. 



73 



Over 'these drawers was another shield, opening at each end into 
the brooding apartment above. The current of hot air generated 
by the tank passed under the lower shields and upwards between 
the drawers, over the eggs, and thence into the brooding apart- 
ment. The two lower drawers were ventilated by flues or tubes 
passing through the water tank, and opening into the open space 
under the lower shields 

This incuba- 
vention of the 
pr act ic e it 
that the upper 
useless, as the 

variably be^^ ;w-i8WDi 

teen degrees 
lower ones. Fig. 59. 

halsted's automatic incubator, 
illustrated at Fig. 56, appeared the f ollowing year. 

This shows view of the front and one end of the machine. B is 
the boiler under which is the lamp which supplies the heat, and 
which is filled with oil from the reservoir O. D is the egg drawer, 
above which is the water tank (see T, Fig. 57) which supplies the 
heat. This tank is elevated two inches above the top of the 
drawer, so as to give room for the regulator below. It is sup- 
ported by battens nailed or screwed fast to the ends and sides. 

Fig. 57 shows the boiler B and a section of the tank T, with the 




tor was the in- 
writer. In 
was found 
drawers were 
heat would in- 
f rom ten to fif - 
higher than the 



tubes F, 
plies the 
hot water, 
which re- 
the boiler 
stop cock 
which the 
drawn off. 
vertical 
boiler and 
tube or flue 
the water 




Fig. 60.— graves' incubator. 



which sup- 
tank with 
and R , 
turns it to 
again. Also 
thro ugh 
water is 
Fig. 58 is a 
view of the 
tank. The 
F taking 
from the 



boiler and discharging it at the extreme end of the tank, and the 
return flue R bringing it back again to the boiler to be reheated. 
TFare two open tubes passing through the tank, acting the double 
purpose of stays to keep the tank from bulging, and as ventilating 
flues for the egg drawer. On the upper ends of these flues are fitted 
valves (like the damper ©f a stove-pipe), connected and fastened to 
a rod which passes through the end of the case, and to which is 



74 



HALSTED S AUTOMATIC INCUBATOR. 



fastened the lever A (Fig. 56). The drawer D is of wood, inside of 
which is a zinc or galvanized iron tray just fitting the drawer and 
tacked to the sides all around ; this tray should be about two inches 
deep. Inside of this is the rack on which to place the eggs ; this rack 
is formed of strips of zinc or iron, each bent like an inverted V, 
thus AAA? an d placed one and three-quarter inches apart from 
centres; these inverted Vs are laid crosswise on three or four 
supporting tubes or similar strips, to which they are soldered, and 
the whole rack is then surrounded by a strip of iron one and a 
half inches wide, to which the ends of these Vs and their sup- 
ports are also soldered. This rack, being then supplied with han- 
dles, can be lifted out of the drawer with the eggs on, whenever 




Fig. 61. — halsted's hot-air incubator. 
desired. Over this rack is laid a piece of flannel blanket or other 
woolen goods, allowing it to dip down into the water, (with which 
the tray should be filled to the depth of one-quarter* or one-half an 
inch), at every third opening, or oftener if more moisture is de- 
sired. The eggs are placed on this blanket. The object of this is 
to supply a moderate amount of moisture to the bottom of the 
eggs. 

In the front of the drawer, about where is seen the letter JD, 
should be a small hole through which to insert the glass tube of a 
thermometer, the bowl being inside. On the tube should be marks 
corresponding to 100° and 105°. By this thermometer the regula- 
tor is adjusted. 

Fig. 59 shows the regulator. This is a glass tube T. six or eight 
inches long, with a bore of five-sixteenths or three-eighths inch 



GRAVES INCUBATOR. 



75 



diameter, one end of which has a bulb M. This bulb is filled with 
mercury, sealed hermetically. This had best be done by a manu- 
facturer of thermometers or a glass blower. A brass cylinder C, 
one and one-half inches long, just fitted over the tube T. On the 
opposite sides of this are soldered firmly the ends of two pieces of 
wire AA. On the long end of this wire is fitted a lever L, on 
which is hung a weight W. This regulator is suspended under 
the hot water tank and above the eggs by the wires A A, the lever 
end passing through the case, so that the lever and weight are 
Outside the Incubator, as shown in Fig. 56. Before putting it in 
place the tube is firmly fastened within the cylinder (7, by run- 
ning in a little plaster. 

Returning now to Fig. 56, we notice that the lever A is connect- 
ed by the rod X with the lever of the regulator L, and the two 



valves op- 
the rod A 
t i o n e d , 
carry off 
from the 
er. These 
be length- 
brought 
top of the 
sirable. To 
Incubator, 
heat has 
desired 
ance the 
with the 
weight. As 




Fig. 62. — day's automatic incubator. 



erated by 
above men- 
when open, 
the hot air 
egg draw- 
tubes may 
ened and 
through the 
case if de- 
regulate the 
when the 
reached the 
point, bal- 
regulator 
aid of the 
the heat 



rises above this point, the mercury expands and flows toward 
the end of the tube T, thus destroying the balance and opening 
the valves. The fresh air coming in cools off the drawer; the 
mercury recedes, and the regulator resuming its position, closes 
the valves. Care must be taken in hanging the regulator to 
place a stay or catch under the end of the tube so that it shall 
not quite assume a horizontal position. This will ensure the re- 
turn of the mercury into the bulb as the heat decreases. 

This Incubator met with very fair success, its objectionable 
points being the liability of the regulator to get broken, owing to 
the great weight of the mercury in the bulb, and the oxidation of 
the mercury in the tube. The wetting of the cloth under the eggs 
by capillary attraction had to be abandoned, as it spoiled the eggs. 

graves' incubator. 
This machine was, as first made, ' ' Halsted's Automatic ", recon- 



76 



HALSTED S HOT-AIR INCUBATOR. 



structed with a different regulating apparatus. Fig. 60 gives a 
representation of it. As will be seen, it bears a resemblance to the 
one just described. The regulating apparatus consists of a hori- 
zontal long glass tube, ending in a bent, U shaped extremity, the 
end of which extends upwards above the horizontal part several 
inches. The large tube is inside the egg drawer, and the bent ex- 
tremity outside, at one end of the machine. The horizontal por- 
tion is filled with alcohol ; the U shaped part with mercury, on 
which floats a cork connected oy a rod to the lever above, which 
opens and closes the ventilators. The heat causes the alcohol to 
expand, and that forces the mercury to rise, carrying the float 
with it. 

The hot water tank, cold water pan, etc. , are identical with that 
shown at Fig. 56. 

Later, the Graves machine was entirely changed, and the heating 



arrange- 
structed on 
the Hoff- 
bator (see 
with heat 
the same 
apparatus 
ed. This 
struction 
virtual fail- 
its manu- 
was stop- 




Fig. 63. 
halsted's hot-air incubator. 



ment con- 
the plan of 
man Incu- 
Fig. 49), 
all around; 
regulating 
was retain- 
last con- 
proved a 
u r e, and 
f a c t u re 
ped. 



This machine was the result of an attempt to dispense with the 
liot water tank and boiler, and carry a current of heated air 
through the egg chamber from a heated surface of sheet iron or 
other metal. 

Fig. 61 gives an illustration of the outward appearance of the 
machine. The lamp O was placed directly under a horizontal 
sheet of iron, which was thinly covered with sand to equalize and 
retain the heat ; above this was a false bottom extending from 
each end to within half an inch of the middle ; on this bottom the 
egg drawers rested, leaving a space of three inches between them, 
through which the hot air passed upward. At each end of the 
machine was a ventilating flue, which extended the whole width 
and opened into the nursery Gl, above which was the ventilator 
V. Openings on the sides were provided to ensure a current of 
fresh air passing into the heated chamber. 



1IALSTED S HOT-AIR INCUBATOR. 



77 



The regulating apparatus was a long horizontal glass tube, which 
was filled with alcohol ; this was suspended between the drawers, 
the back end terminating in a pin held by a bracket, and the front 
in a small neck, which also ended in a pin, which latter was sock- 
eted into the bracket B; on one side of this neck was attached the 
bent glass tube AT, which was filled with mercury as shown by 
M; attached to this were levers F, F, one of which was connected 




Fig. 64. — baker's incubator. 

by the wire IX to the lever of the ventilator IX, and the other by 
the wire 2X to the lamp lever 2L. 

The heat in the egg chamber 6767 caused the alcohol to expand, 
and that forcing the mercury toward the extremity of the tube, 
the regulator being hung on pivots, the end T was carried down 
by the weight of the mercury, and the levers moving with it, 
opened the ventilators and turned down the lamp flame ; as it 
cooled, the action was reversed. 



78 DAY S AND BAKER S INCUBATORS. 

When first set up this regulating apparatus wprked to a charm, 
but its regularity was of short endurance. The evaporation of 
the alcohol and the oxidation of the mercury would put it out of 
order in from five to seven days. The machine itself was not 
practically worth a rush. It was impossible to keep an even heat 
in all parts of the drawers, and equally impossible to maintain an 
even and proper moisture in the air without the closest attention. 
A hatch of fifty per cent, was a rare occurrence, while the spoil- 
ing of the whole batch was the usual result. 

day's automatic incubator. 

Fig. 62 gives an outside, and Fig. 63 a sectional view of this ma- 
chine. Like the one just mentioned it is a hot-air machine. The 
heat is generated by a kerosene stove, over which is a pan of 
water to keep the air moist, and a hot air chamber, from which 
the heated air passes over the eggs as shown by the arrows in 
Fig. 63 ; the shelves for the eggs are placed on an incline, that the 
eggs may receive an equal heat ; under the lower shelves on each 
side is an apartment for the yoUng chicks. The regulating ap- 
paratus consists of a thermostatic bar, which acts upon a flatten- 
ed drum; on this is wound a cord which passes over a pulley 
and is weighted at the other end. The axle of this drum termin- 
ates in a crank, to which is attached a wire which operates up- 
on the flame of the lamp, increasing or decreasing it as required. 
Although seemingly well provided with ventilating holes, the ven- 
tilation is bad, and the heat of the drawers varies from ten to 
twenty degrees. The thermostatic bar is too crudely made to be 
reliable. The mode of communicating the action of the bar to the 
lamp though, is admirable from its simplicity and non-liability 
to derangement. 

baker's incubator, 

Illustrated by Fig. 64, was apparently founded on the model of 
the machine made by Hoffman. It consisted of a hot-air chamber, 
surrounded on all sides by a tank of water, heated by a boiler 
placed at one side, the whole enclosed in a wooden case. A bat- 
tery was attached, arid by means of a circuit closer a bell was 
rung whenever the heat got above or below the proper limit. 
Later, the electric current was caused to operate upon a magnet, 
which opened and closed the ventilators. I believe this to have 
been the first practical application of electricity to the regulation 
of the Incubator. The ringing of the bell as an alarm, had been 
used both by Dr. Preterre and myself, some years previous to 
Baker's adaptation of it. 



MYERS INCUBATOR. 



79 



This machine was most excellent in construction, the tank being 
of copper, and boiler and flues of same material. But the same 
difficulty' crops out in this as in all other machines, where it is at- 
tempted to place several tiers of drawers in one egg chamber— the 
variation of the heat between the upper and lower drawers must 
be so great, that either top or bottom must be useless, or else the 
ventilation must be almost entirely stopped. The machine there- 
for was only a partial success. 

MYERS' INCUBATOR. 

This was an adaptation of the principle used by Cantelo, and by 
Adrien & Trioche. A large box eight feet long by three or four 
wide, was fitted with a tank made of india rubber sheeting, sup- 
ported on wires placed two inches apart. Under this were the 




Fig. 65.— the national incubator. 
drawers, also fitted with rods placed two inches apart, and so ar- 
ranged that the eggs came between the supporting wires of the 
tank, when the drawer was fitted into its place. The drawers 
were in two ranges placed back to back, as in A. & T.'s machine. 
The hot water was supplied from a stove and boiler standing a few 
feet away, heated by a coal fire. A regulating attachment was pro- 
vided, which was said to act upon the damper of the stove, open- 
ing or closing the draft and thus increasing or decreasing the heat. 

Over the tank was placed a zinc or sheet iron covering on which 
sand was strewn. This was surrounded by a wire-gauze railing 
a few inches high, and was used as a nursery for the newly hatch- 
ed chickens. 

The inventor had very good success with this machine ; taking 
eggs from the farmers to hatch as well as hatching for himself. It 



80 THE NATIONAL INCUBATOR. 

required though, very close attention. I do not -know that any 
were ever made for sale. 

THE NATIONAL INCUBATOR 

is illustrated by Fig. 65. It is a hot-air machine, and as will be 
seen, is formed of many parts. First, is the stove on the right, 
which is heated by kerosene, supplied from an inverted can (seen 
under the machine proper) which discharges the oil into a small 
cup, whence it is conveyed to the lamp through a small tin tube. 
As the cup is open, there must be a great deal of evaporation as 
well as odor from the oil. The stove is simply two drums, one in- 
side the other, the space between them packed with non-conduct- 
ing material. The Incubator proper is a circular box, (like a large 
cheese box) made of wood, covered in some cases with tarred 
paper, and supported on a frame as shown in the cut. 

The drawers for the eggs are semi-quadrant in shape, inclining 
from the outer edge towards the centre. The bottoms of these are 
covered with sand, on which the eggs rest. These drawers all 
rest on a revolving bottom, which in turning brings each drawer 
in turn before the door. The hot air generated by the stove, is 
carried into the machine through the connecting pipe, and by ex- 
tending the pipe inside, is discharged into the centre of the egg 
chamber. Directly under this point is a vial of mercury, into 
which is placed one end of a platinum wire, this is fastened to a 
connecting copper wire, which leads to the battery; the return 
wire is also tipped with platinum, and is so set that when the heat 
causes the mercury to rise to a certain degree, it touches the pla- 
tinum wire and the electric circuit is complete. When this is 
done, an electric bell commences ringing and ceases not until the 
heat recedes again. We do not know of any other regulating (?) 
apparatus about it ; (although it is claimed that the heat is shut 
off from the egg chamber when the temperature gets too high:) 
the maintaining of the proper heat depending* on the care and 
watchfulness of the attendant. 

Living in the same room with the machine, and sleeping beside 
it, the inventors claim to have hatched some wonderful percent- 
ages. They certainly have made some most excellent exhibitions 
at the different shows throughout the country ; and if they could 
succeed in devising some less odor absorbing material for the 
bottom of their egg drawers, or change the present material often- 
er, hundreds of visitors would appreciate the innovation. 

HYDE'S INCUBATOR. 

This was designed and constructed for the pleasure and use of 



HYDE'S INCUBATOR. 



81 



the inventor, but as several of them have been made and found 
their way into other hands, it is well to give a short description 
of it. 

The heating arrangement is similar to Vallee's; the machine 
stands on four legs like a table ; on the opposite end from the lamp 
is placed the regulating apparatus. This consists of a short and 
long arm revolving on the axis of a clock movement, and catching 
alternately on the notched arc of one end of a lever, the other end 
of which is moved by a thermostatic bar in the egg chamber of the 
machine. Attached to this axis is also a crank, from which a very 




FlG. 66. — THE CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 

light wooden rod connects with the lamp, raising or lowering 
the llame as needed. Under the egg drawer are placed sponges 
saturated with water, to give the necessary moisture to the air. 



THE CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 

This machine, illustrated at Fig. 66, is the outgrowth of a great 
many experimental machines, two of which are illustrated at 
figures 56 and 61. 

The principles embodied in the present Incubator were first 
combined and shown at the International Exhibition at Philadel- 
phia in 1876, from which it received its name. At that time the 
case of the Incubator was of wood, and the boiler, tank and lamp 



82 



THE CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 



only of metal. The folloAving year the machine was remodelled, 
and constructed entirely of galvanized iron, save the heating ar- 
rangements, which are of copper. 

The growth of this machine may really said to have begun in 
1865, at which time the writer began his first experiments in Arti- 
ficial Incubation, but it was not until 1878 that The Centennial ap- 




peared in its present form and took its hard-earned position as the 
Standard Incubator of America, if not of the world. 

As nearly one hundred of them are in use on the ostrich farms 
of South Africa, and fully fifty more distributed in England, Ger- 
many, Australia, Cuba, Mexico and Brazil, the title is not inappro- 

PI The Incubator consists of a copper boiler and tank, the boiler 



THE CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 



83 



encased with an outer jacket of galvanized iron, and the space be- 
tween packed with mineral wool. The tank is enclosed by a case 
of galvanized iron, outside of which is still another case of same 
metal, with intervening space also packed with non-conducting 
material ; this space is from two to three inches thick. Inside the 
tank is a system of tubes which bring the water from the boiler 
and so distribute it that the outer edges of the tank are the hot- 
test ; the water, as it cools, is taken up by the return flues and 
conveyed back to the boiler, to be again heated. The heat is gen- 
erated by a lamp with a kerosene burner, such as is used on a 
large-sized table lamp. The chimney is of metal, and passes 
through the water, thereby preventing any waste of heat by 
radiation. 

The egg chamber is under the tank, the drawers so constructed 
that the eggs are held by parallel rods in position where placed ; 
under the egg drawers is a cold water pan, to keep the bottom of 
the eggs cool and moist ; the bottom of this water pan comes in 
direct contact with the outer air, thus ensuring the water from 
getting heated. In the egg chamber are also water vessels to pro- 
vide moisture for the eggs. Over the eggs, and directly under the 
tank, is the thermostatic or regulating-bar. This bar is of com- 
posite character, and is the result of many years experimenting. 
Many of them have stood the test of three consecutive seasons, 
which is a v.ery thorough test of their reliability and lasting qual- 
ities. This bar is so attached to the machine that it can be regu- 
lated from the outside, and the free end (the point of which is 
shown at S, Fig. 66) adjusted to the one-hundredth part of an inch 
if desired. 

As we shall need frequent reference to the cut in describing The 
Centennial, we give the parts here : 



A — Tube through which the tank and 

boiler are filled. 
B — Boiler in two parts : B - the boiler 

proper; and B' — the boiler head. 
C — Lamp-lever. 
D — Connecting rod between lamp-lever 

and lamp -trip. 
E— Reel or drum. 
F— Faucet to draw off water. 
H— Escape. 
1 — Escape-lever. 



L — Lamp. 

N— Door of egg chamber. 
O — Vent rube. 
P— Pulley. 
R — Reservoir. 

5'—- Wire end of the regulator-bar pro- 
jecting through slotted hole . 
T— Thermometer. 
V— Ventilator box or flue. 
W— Weight. 



A ventilating flue extends from the egg chamber through the 
tank opening at V; another circular hole through the tank allows 
the thermometer to extend down into the egg chamber, but leav- 



84: 



THE CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 



ing the scale above, so the temperature of the eggs may be seen 
at a glance. 

The regulating apparatus consists of a reel furnished with four 
arms, whose bent ends are caught and released alternately by the 
curved end of the escape-lever, the lower end of which is operated 




Fig. 68. — corbett's apparatus. 

by the wire point of the regulator-bar ; a cord or thread wound 
on the reel passes over the pulley, and has a weight attached which 
gives the power to the reel. 

Another lever C is operated by two pins on the back of the reel ; 
this lever is connected by the rod D with the lamp trip. The 



THE ECLIPSE INCUBATOR. 85 

shaft of the reel passes through the side of the case into the ven- 
tilator flue, and is there attached to a revolving ventilator. 

As the thermostatic bar moves forward or backward with the 
2ieat, the opening in the escape-lever comes over one of the bent 
ends of the arms of the reel, allowing it to pass through, which it 
does by the force of the weight, the next arm catching on the 
opposite side of the opening; this opens the ventilator, and at the 
same time turns down the flame of the lamp. As the drawer 
cools, the escape-lever is moved by the thermostatic bar in the re- 
verse direction, the next arm is released, and the reel makes an- 
other quarter revolution, closing the ventilator and turning up the 
flame of the lamp. The action is repeated until the weight runs 
down. The lamp is hinged to the side of the Incubator so that 
it is impossible to upset it, unless first removing it from the ma- 
chine. 

As will be seen, this Incubator is very simple, very complete, 
easily regulated, not liable to get out of order, and, being all of 
iron and copper, will last for many years. It is also handsomely 
grained in oak, japanned and kiln-dried ; added to this is its auto- 
matic action, being so positively self -regulating that it may be 
(and has been) left for sixty hours without attention, and the 
temperature in the egg chamber not varied over three degrees 
during that time. 

Another feature worthy of consideration is the fact that pur- 
chasers of the machine have better success in hatching than the 
inventor himself, their averages being larger, and in five instances 
every fertile egg was hatched, or one hundred per cent. 

Letters patent were granted for the Centennial Incubator in 
July, 1880. For further particulars send for illustrated circular 
to A. M. Halsted, Rye, N. Y. 

THE ECLIPSE SELF-REGULATING INCUBATOR— FIG. 67. 

In this Incubator the heat is radiated from a galvanized iron 
tank placed above the eggs, in which is a constant and regular 
circulation of water. The heating is done by a kerosene oil lamp, 
which consumes less than a quart of oil in twenty-four hours. By 
no possibility can the fumes of the lamp enter the Incubator, or 
reach the eggs. The Incubator is thoroughly ventilated by six 
pipes beneath the egg drawers, so the bottoms of the eggs have a 
constant supply of cool, fresh air. 

The entire bottom of the Incubator is covered with water, to 
furnish moisture to the eggs by evaporation. In the Incubators 
we now build this water can be changed in a moment, without 



86 



THE ECLIPSE INCUBATOR. 



disturbing the eggs or even opening the egg chamber, and either 
hot or cool water can be supplied, according to the fancy of the 
operator. 
The electric battery of the Eclipse is a very simple one ; each 




purchaser puts it together himself, so he cannot fail to fully un- 
derstand it ; nothing about it is covered — all is in plain sight — and 
if it should become exhausted it need not be returned to the man- 
ufacturers for a new one, as the purchaser can set it right again 
himself in about one minute. 

The Eclipse is put together by dovetailing every joint and cor- 
ner, so it cannot warp, and makes a perfectly air-tight joint. As 



weston's incubator. 



87 



the machine for making this joint costs three hundred dollars, it 
is not at all likely that any other manufacturer will ever use it. 
We furnish the Incubators very handsomely, so they can be kept 
in the dwelling house ; it is much more convenient there, especially 
if it is to be managed at all by women or children. 




Fig. 70. 

The Eclipse is manufactured in Waltham, Mass., and circulars 
and prices will be sent to any one upon application. ^ 

weston's incubator. 

This Incubator had the appearance, outwardly, of an old-fash- 
ioned kitchen safe. It stood upright, elevatecl about two feet from 
the floor on legs like a table. A tank in the top was supplied from 
a boiler suspended underneath the case, by two connecting pipes, 
in each of which were stop-cocks. The method of regulating the 



88 



C0RBETT S APPARATUS. 



heat was turning these stop-cocks, giving a faster or slower circu- 
lation to the water, as required. This, of course, had to be done 
by hand. 

The inventor says of it : " The heat is generated by use of coal 
oil lamps; the heat cannot run too high, and is so arranged that 
the condensation of steam, regulates it, while at the same time it 
furnishes the requisite moisture to the eggs. It requires no care, 
except to occasionally fill the lamp with oil ". He further says : 
"After several years of patient study, I have so far perfected the 
apparatus as to feel it cannot be improved ". 

As the water in the boiler is never supposed to come to the boil- 
ing point, we are at a loss to know from where he gets his steam 
to condense. The « ^ machine, how- 



ever, like dozens 
dropped out of 

corbett's 

appeared about 
simply a modifica- 
method of hatch- 
the heat generated . 
Fig. 68 gives a 
apparatus, with 
It is, as appears, a 
with a circular 
hold the eggs; 
fitted with a slide, 
sary ventilation. 




of others, has 
notice. 

APPARATUS 

this time. It is 

tion of Reaumur's 

ing by means of 

by horse manure. 

front view of the 

the door let down. 

barrel-shaped box 

tray or trays to 

over this is a flue, 
Fig. 71,-jaques' incubator. to give the neces . 

The box, when closed, is packed in horse ma- 
nure, leaving only the ventilating flue uncovered. The heat of 
the apparatus is tested by a thermometer, through the ventilator, 
and kept as near right as possible by opening or closing the slide. 
The same apparatus is used as an Artificial Mother, by putting in 
a circular board lined with felting or sheepskin, and elevating 
it a few inches above the bottom of the box. The front is left open, 
as shown in the cut. 

Mr. Corbett, we believe, owes his first ideas of this system of 
incubation io Dr. Preterre, of New York City, by whom he was 
employed, and under whose direction he tried artificial hatching 
by Reaumur's method on the Doctor's farm in New Jersey. The 
Doctor stated to the writer that he found the process uncertain 
and unsatisfactory, and gave it up in favor of the ' * Vallee " ma- 
chine, which he had previously used. 

Mr. C. carried on hatching operations for a time at Hicksville, 
L. I., but abandoned them after one or two years experience. 



INCUBATORS. 



89 



boyle's incubator. 

This is an English invention, and one which bid fair to make a 
-success, but for some reason the results with it, so far as we know, 
have not been as satisfactory as at first promised. 

Fig. 69 gives a front view of the machine, and Fig. 70 a plan of 
the regulating apparatus. 

The machine is about two feet square and three high. Through 
the open door, which covers about half the entire front when 
closed, is seen the boiler, with stop-cocks for drawing off the 
water; the lamp, with its attachment, and the regulating appar- 
atus. Above this are two half doors, which open at right angles 
to the face of the case, on the under end of which are two pro- 
jecting battens, upon which the egg drawer slides out. 

This egg drawer is a tray, with holes cut through large enough 
to allow the egg to drop about one-third through. This arrange- 
ment is designed to cool the bottom of the egg, in imitation of the 
natural process when the hen makes her nest on the ground. 

Upon the tray are small cups, which are kept filled with water 
to keep the air moist. 

Attached to each side of the machine are two projecting shelves, 
edged with a low railing, which serve as a run for the chicks for 
a few days after hatching. Next the boiler, and opening into the 
runs, are two inclined boards, lined with fleece or some soft ma- 
terial, under which the chicks nestle, and which are, in fact, small- 
sized Artificial Mothers. 

On the top of the case is a circular opening covered with glass, 
through which the eggs may be seen and the temperature noted. 
This is further protected by a hinged cover. 

Eef erring to Fig. 70, the parts are designated thus: 



JL — Front of case. 

B— Balance of lever. 

C— Connecting pipe. 

D — India-rubber tube. 

E— Glass U tube. 

jp—Bowl for mercury. 

G — Elastic joint. 

H— Balance joint. 

J — Pivot gas-cock. 

^-Stop-cock (gas). T-Movable weight. 

The regulator works by the expansion of water and the weight 
of mercury. When the boiler is filled with water and heated to 
the proper temperature, mercury is poured into the bowl F until 
it rises suflciently high in the tube E. This tube being connected 



L —Compensating spring. 

M— Supply-cock of boiler. 

N— Air- vent of boiler. 

O — Connecting wire. 

JP— Connection with gas supply. 

Q — India-rubber connection with 

flame. 
R — Gas jet. 
S— Exhaust-cock of boiler. 



90 



JAQUES INCUBATOR. 



by the India-rubber tube D with the boiler, and the water in the 
boiler having no other outlet, when the heat rises, and the water 
consequently expands, the mercury is forced into the bowl, and 
relieves the balance weightiJ, which partly closes the pivot gas- 
cock 7, and reduces the supply of gas. As the heat falls, the water 
in the boiler contracts, and the reverse action of the mercury in- 
creases the flow of gas, and thus creates a larger flame. The 
compensating springs L prevent the bowl rising or falling too 
suddenly. 

If a lamp is used, instead of gas, the connecting wire is attached 
to the mechanism for cutting off the flame. 




Fig. 72. — the perfect hatcher. 

There is no ventilator connected with the regulator, the regula- 
tion of temperature being entirely dependent upon the cutting off 
or turning on the source of heat. 

Its objections are its complicated arrangements and its great 
cost in proportion to its capacity, the Incubator from which our 
illustration was taken holding only forty-two eggs, and costing in 
England £15 — about $75 currency. 

JAQUES' INCUBATOR. 

This is an American invention, and probably the cheapest ap- 
paratus in the Incubator line. It is shown in Fig. 71. The in- 
ventor sa vs of it : 



THE PERFECT HATCHER. 



91 



" The above cut represents an Incubator invented by me for my 
own use. I have succeeded in securing a chamber in which I can 
regulate the temperature and hold it at any degree desired. My 
claim for it is, that it is. the easiest to construct and cheapest to 
make of any Incubator offered to the public, I do not claim that 
it will hatch as large a percentage of eggs as those constructed on 
more scientific principles, yet it will hatch a large percentage if 
carefully managed by any person of ordinary intelligence. As 
there is no self -regulating attachment, it will require more care 
than those that have it. The capacity of one made with a sugar 
barrel is about one hundred eggs; the cost (excepting the ther- 
mometer) about five dollars. I do not manufacture them for sale, 
but, on receipt of fifty cents, will send my pamphlet, containing 
full instructions for making and using one ". 

Charles B. Jaques, Metuchen, Middlesex Co., New Jersey. 

THE PERFECT HATCHER. 

Fig. 72 represents a front view of this machine, for which the 
inventor makes the modest claim that " it is the only perfectly re- 
liable Incubator in the world". Singular to relate, the inventor 
seems to be the only one who has made that wonderful discovery. 

The Incubator from which our cut was taken is made of wood, 
and is about five feet long, three wide, four and a half high, and 
is said to hold three hundred eggs. A tank of water fills the en- 
tire upper portion of the case, over the eggs; at the opposite end 
from the lamp, a return flue takes the water from the tank into 
the chamber under the eggs, (one door of which is seen open), 
whence it is carried by a number of smaller pipes, back to the re- 
turn flue of the boiler. The lamp and boiler are identical with 
that of the Centennial, (except that the latter has no outer jacket), 
and were copied from that model. The bottoms of the egg drawers 
are of fine wire cloth, on which the eggs lie without any intervening 
substance. These egg-trays are on movable slides, so that they 
can be raised nearer the tank to compensate for the unevenness of 
the heat. The lower chamber above spoken of, constitutes a brood- 
er or artificial mother for the chicks when first hatched. 

Over the egg drawers, is suspended a rubber rod three or more 
feet long, fastened at one end to a stationary bracket, and the 
other end held by a spring acting lengthwise with the rod; this 
end is attached to the lower end of a lever, which, extending up- 
wards through an opening in the tank, connects with the wires ot 
an electric battery? This battery is used in connection with a 
clock-work, similar in -principle to that of the Eclipse. The ex- 
pansion of the rod as the heat rises, closes the electric circuit, 



92 



WATERHOUSE S INCUBATOR. 



which, acting upon the magnet, sets the clock in motion, opening 
the ventilator and turning down the light. As the rod contracts 
under the lowering of the heat, the reverse action follows. 

Although it is such a ''perfect" machine, but very few of them 
are in use; the complication of the electric attachment proving a 
bar against its popularity; and the unevenness of the heat in the 
unnecessarily large egg chamber, preventing as good results in 
hatching, as has been attained with a number of other styles of 
Incubators. 

waterhouse's incubator. 

This is a Connecticut invention. In general appearance it is a 




Fig. 73. 

little similar to Jaques' Incubator; the sides of the case however, 
are built up of either paper or wood. The eggs rest in a basin- 
shaped pan in the centre of the cylindrical case, around the outer 
edge of which is a space for the entrance of the hot air from the 
lamp chamber. In the latter is a reservoir of water, to provide 
moisture for the air. Over the egg-basin is a circular glass plate, 
through which can be seen the eggs and the thermometers which 
lie on top of the eggs. Above and to one side is a flue, opening 
into the outer air ; in this flue is a pivoted damper or valve. The 
regulator is a copper rod, firmly fastened at one end and free at 
the other, which is connected with the short arm of a nicely ad- 
justed lever, the other arm of which is connected with the damp- 
er above mentioned ; when the chamber gets too hot, the expan- 
sion of the copper rod, is supposed to act on the lever with suffici- 
ent force to cause the damper to open, thus drawing off the heat 



bates' and masterton's incubators. 



93 



from the egg chamber. As it cools, the rod contracts and closes 
the damper. 

The strongest objection we see against this Incubator, is that 
the fumes of the kerosene oil lamp pass directly into the egg 
chamber, which we hardly think compatible with the health of 
either eggs or chickens. 

BATES' EGYPTIAN INCUBATOR. 

If simplicity be of any value in an Incubator, that illustrated by 
Fig. 73 must be a very valuable apparatus. 

A wooden case inside of which is a tank of water ; a boiler out- 
side connected by supply and return tubes with the tank ; a small 

size kero- I ' — | sene stove 

to generate e=^ heat; an 

open space *_ JlftJi ipto/the 

tures. There ft II %f^^^^^^ is no regu " 

perfect 5 sue" WT/ ■ , Y//' ■ '''^Mffi^ cess with ^ 

and that is %' / ' >/,/■: ■ jf ■' i I I itiw a watchman 
to sit along- 1^ - . ^ 'LJ*M)h ) : jIlii«M side of it for 
three weeks FlG - 74.— the reliance incubator. to turn the 
lamp up or down as needed, and shift the eggs around to get uni- 
formity of heat. 

masterton's incubator, 

Comes from the Pacific Coast. Its principal features are the 
use of a coil of pipe inside the tank, through which the water from 
the boiler passes before it is discharged into the top portion of the 
tank; and a revolving egg-tray, by which the eggs are turned 
without opening the egg chamber. This latter is a drawer or tray, 
suspended on journals. The eggs are laid on a perforated bottom, 
through which the heat has free passage ; they are covered with a 
similar material which is securely fastened to the sides of the tray. 
In turning, all that is necessary is to revolve the drawer half way 
and the eggs are reversed. The device is patented. 



91 DAVIS* AND RELIANCE INCUBATORS. 

i 

DAVIS' INCUBATOR, 

Finds life and recognition at the Patent Office, from Pennsylva- 
nia. It has several peculiarities worthy of mention, from the fact 
that they differ from the stereotyped plans usually seen. « 

The tank placed in the usual position, is virtually a square basin 
with a glass bottom, and a hinged cover. The hot water passes in- 
to one end from the boiler, and is distributed by three pipes in 
different parts of the tank. Passing out at the other end, it is car- 
ried down and under the egg chamber back to the boiler. The 
drawer is fitted with an inner bottom of pliable material, held up 
by coiled springs. The eggs are placed on this and the drawer 
pushed up until the eggs touch the glass bottom of the tank ; the 
coiled wire springs ensure every egg resting against the glass. 

In the chamber under the eggs the return pipe is caused to pass 
to and fro a half dozen or more times, in order to form a brooding 
apartment for the young chicks. 

The apparatus for elevating the drawer consists of four levers, 
the inner ends of which are connected by cords to a small wind- 
lass, which, being turned, depresses the centres and elevates the 
four corners of the drawer simultaneously. There is no regulat- 
ing apparatus on the machine. 

THE RELIANCE INCUBATOR. 

The " Reliance " Incubator was invented by James Dennis, Jr., 
of Providence, P. I. , and patented July 20th, 1880 ; it is now manu- 
factured by him in that city. It is a first-class machine, and is 
made in a thorough and workmanlike manner. 

This machine consists of two cases, made of the best quality of 
galvanized iron, the parts of which are both riveted and soldered 
together. There is one inch of space between the cases, which is 
filled with the best non-conductor of heat yet discovered. In the 
upper part of the incubator is a chamber in which is placed a 
soapstone radiator, that is heated by means of a continuous coil 
of hot water pipes. Underneath this radiator are the egg drawers, 
and beneath the egg drawers the evaporating pans are placed. 
The air for ventilation is taken in through holes punched in the 
bottom of the machine in such a manner as to materially assist in 
regulating the heat. The ventilators through the top are so con- 
trived as to thoroughly ventilate every part of the egg drawer 
without exposing any of the eggs to the direct influence of the 
outside temperature. The machine is placed on a solid table, made 
of the best quality of western ash, and, for convenience in manip- 
ulating the eggs, it is furnished with a. slide shelf on which to rest 
the drawer. The heat used is obtained from a "Florence" oil 



MEAD'S, ONEIDA COMMUNITY AND NOVELTY INCUBATORS. 95 



stove of a pattern made expressly for this machine. In using a 
soapstone radiator in preference to a tank of water, the inventor 
considers he has gained in several particulars, viz. : It is very much 
less sensitive to changes of temperature ; again, he gets a mild, 
soft heat, nearest like that developed from an animal body, and 
consequently is best adapted for developing animal life. The 
ventilation is perfect, as the ventilators are never closed. This is 
one of the simplest, if not the simplest, machines now in the mar- 
ket, and the inventor claims it will satisfactorily hatch all the eggs 
that would hatch, under the most favorable circumstances, in the 
natural way. 

It requires very little care, as ten minutes twice each day is 
amply sufficient to attend to a three hundred egg machine. There 
is no electricity used in connection with it, and no machinery for 
the opening A and closing of 

valves, so that J lL there is noth- 

ing liable to ^m^^^ ^^S^r^^ ^^^ L^tea^SB get out of or- 



der. Further 
cheerfully fur- 
application to 
address, No. 86 
Providence, 

mead's 

consists of the ^ 
boiler, heated 
gas jet. In 




information 
nished upon 
the inventor : 
Meeting street, 
E. I. 

INCUBATOR 

usual tank and 
by a lamp or 
general ap- 



pearance it is Fig. 75.— the novelty incubator, somewhat like 
Carbonnier's, with the lamp and boiler placed outside the case. 
Over the top is a glass-enclosed space for the newly hatched chicks. 
It has no specially interesting features that we know of. 

THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY HATCHER 

was exhibited at the Fair of the New York State Agricultural So- 
ciety, a few years since, and there hatched out a goodly number 
of chickens. It was modelled somewhat after the Eclipse, out- 
wardly, and regulated by an electrical battery. It was, however, 
of very rough and primitive construction, and needed frequent 
looking after, although a self -regulator. 

THE NOVELTY INCUBATOR. 

Fig. 75 shows this really novel Incubator. Its heating appar- 
atus consists of two tanks, one above the other, with a space oi 
ten or twelve inches between them; from the top of the lowei 



96 



EUREKA INCUBATOR. 



tank, at the corners, four tubes led into the upper tank, extend- 
ing nearly to the upper side ; from the bottom of this upper tank 
four more tubes led downwards^ discharging into the bottom por- 
tion of the lower one. 

The lamp was placed under the centre of the lower tank, and 
from the construction above described a very complete circulation 
of water was obtained. 

The whole was enclosed in a wooden case, with a door through 
which the egg tray was put in or out, the egg chamber being be- 
tween the two tanks. Ventilation is provided by holes through 
the sides of the case and a small flue with a check or stop valve 
on top. On top of the lower tank, and under the egg drawer, are 




Fig. 76. 

placed pans of water, which evaporating, keep the air charged 
with moisture. No regulator is used, the supposition being that 
a free draft of air would prevent any overheating of the eggs dur- 
ing the time the machine was left alone, which was placed at four 
to six hours. In theory this seemed very plausible, but in prac- 
tice it was found that in warm weather, or in a room of variable 
temperature, it required almost hourly attention. 

CAMPBELL/ S EUREKA INCUBATOR 

has one feature about it that deserves mention. In general ap- 
pearance and construction it is a little like "Christy's Hydro" 
(illustrated further on), but the egg tray or slide has on it a rack, 
between the partitions of which the eggs are laid. This rack is 
connected with a clock movement, which is in turn connected 
with a clock similarly to an alarm attachment ; the pointer is set 
at any specified hour, and when that time arrives the rack is 



PENMAN S INCUBATOR. 



97 



pushed slowly along until the eggs have rolled half over. At the 
next recurrence of that hour the rack is drawn back, and the eggs 
turned back to their first position ; the eggs thus are turned twice 
daily, whether the attendant is present or not. 

The absence of any regulating apparatus is, however, a serious 
drawback, and the temptation to neglect the airing of the eggs 
almost counterbalances any benefit derived from automatically 
turning them 

penman's incubator. 

This is another English invention, and is said to be a very supe- 
rior machine. Figs. 76, 77 and 78 show different views, and, by a 
reference to. following description, will give a very excellent idea 
of the machine. 




Fig. 77. 

1. A wood frame, similar to a table frame, supported by four 
legs, by a screw and nut arrangement, like a piano. 

2. An India-rubber cloth waterproof tray, cistern or tank, made 
fast to the inside face of the frame (No. 1), and resting on a ledge 
attached to the same, and on two cross-bars. At each end of the 
cistern are two outlets (7), communicating with the Artificial 
Mother underneath, and through which the water flows after hav- 
ing traversed the upper surface of the eggs. 

3. Three (less or more) brass or other metal tubes, to contain 
air, gases, spirits, oils, or any other fluid that can be expanded by 
heat, extending the whole length of the cistern, and in communi- 
cation with each other and with the regulator (15, Fig. 76) by 
means of pipe 3 A. 

4. Two iron covers for cistern (one out of its position to show 
interior of cistern) to retain the heat and steam arising therefrom. 



98 penman's incubator* 

These covers can be utilized for the purpose of raising seed, strik- 
ing cuttings of plants, or growing ferns or other plants. Glass 
shades or covers of any pattern can be made for them when re- 
quired. 

5. Thermometer (in shape like the letter — i) to indicate the cor- 
rect heat in the egg drawers or trays, which it does by being in 
contact with the source of heat, and not obtaining it by radiation. 

6. Four drawers or trays (one at the left hand out of position) 
eighteen inches by ten inches, each perforated with a number of 
small holes half an inch from the bottom for the exit of the foul 
air engendered in the tray during incubation, and another row of 
holes near the top for the inlet of fresh air, thus causing a contin- 
uous change in the air of the drawers for the successful oxygena- 
tion of the blood. Underneath a perforated zinc bottom in each 




HBaagaBagaPBagaasaBggsasjsg — BssaanggEag— nam— h^ 

Fig. 78. 

drawer is placed a layer of finely sifted garden soil, to the depth 
of about half an inch, to be constantly kept damp (not wet), and 
which diffuses a genial moisture to the air and eggs during the 
whole period of incubation. Each drawer is capable of holding 
between forty and fifty eggs of the smaller breeds of poultry, or 
about forty duck eggs ; thus this Incubator can contain at one 
time from one hundred and fifty to two hundred eggs, and can 
hatch any size of eggs from a swan's to a sparrow's. 

7. Four pipes to convey the warm water from the cistern above 
to the Artificial Mother below, which is seen in Figs. 76 and 78, 
No. 10. 

8. Nursery for chickens, the front containing glass, and the 
back wire netting or wood (No. 9, Fig. 76). When more room is 
required for chickens, an extension equivalent to half the length 
of the Incubator can be attached to each end, thus doubling the 
area of the run. 

10. Artificial Mother (sloping in the direction of the arrow from 
about eight inches high at A to three or four inches at B, see No. 



PENMAN'S AND THE SCOTIA INCUBATORS. 99 

10 on Fig. 76), heated by the water flowing from the tank 
above through four pipes (7). 

11. Return pipe, conveying the water from the Artificial Mother 
to the boiler to be re-heated. 

12. Boiler, containing three flattened elbow tubes, each one 
placed above a lamp wick. 

13. Lamp for the burning of paraffin, petroleum, or other oils, 
containing three wicks, each two and three-quarter inches broad, 
the whole held in position by four rods fitted into corresponding 
tubes attached to the lamp, and retained by two sliding catches. 

14. Inlet pipe, joined to the boiler by a brass coupling, convey- 
ing the heated water by five graduated openings or inlets to the 
cistern, whence it flows on both sides of the centre to the ends of 
the tank. 

15. Heat regulator, a pill-box shaped brass vessel, having, as a 
lid, a flexible diaphragm, which acts by means of a rod upon the 
slide or cover of lamp No. 16, Fig. 76. 

16. Graduated slide or cover for lamp. As the heat expands 
the air, or any other fluid that may be used, in the long tubes 
within the cistern, the only non-resisting medium upon which it 
can act is the flexible diaphragm on No. 15, causing it to protrude 
in the direction of the dotted line, and thus propelling the slide or 
cover (No. 16) inward upon the flames, and thereby cutting off 
the heat. As the heat of the water in the cistern or tank sub- 
sides, the atmospheric pressure, re-acting on the diaphragm, causes 
the slide to be withdrawn, and thus the size of the flames, and 
consequently the heat, is again increased. 

17. Waste pipe to run off the water at the end of the hatching 
season. 

18. Tray, made of the same material as the tank, surrounded 
by a wood frame in which to place the eggs after the birds have 
chipped the shells, and where the chickens can remain till they 
are dry, when they may be removed to the Mother below. 

Where gas can be obtained and would be preferred, a regulator 
for it is made instead of the oil lamp. 

We have no doubt but this is the best of the English machines, 
yet its complication of parts and great cost will prevent its ever 
becoming popular with those who have the most use for an Incu- 
bator. 

THE SCOTIA INCUBATOR 

is of the same nationality as the last. It is described in Brown's 
book on Artificial Incubation as being in appearance like a very 
flat box, with one drawer in front, and an arched hole at each end 



100 



CHRYSTY'S DYDRO-rtfCTTBATOR. 



of it. It is about three feet in length, half that in width, and 
fifteen inches in height, the outer case being wood entirely. A 
tank, about one and a half inches deep, is fitted in it, extending 
the whole length of the machine, which is heated by lamps placed 
in compartments of which the arched holes are the entrance. 
These lamps are ordinary paraffin lamps, without chimneys. 
The egg drawer is placed between the two lamp compartments, 
and is sufficiently large to hold one hundred eggs. In the bottom 
of this drawer sods are placed, or earth, and kept constantly 
moist ; above this a layer of straw is laid, on which the eggs are 
put. Ventilation is given over the ends and back of this drawer. 



HYDR0-INCUBAT&RS 
^.LONDON 4 




Fig. 79. — chrysty's dydro-incubator. 

The great fault in this machine is its defective ventilation and 
lack of regulator. 

chrysty's hydro-incubator 

is a London, Eng. , invention, of which Fig. 79 is an illustration. 
In describing its parts, A is the exhaust pipe used in emptying the 
cistern ; B, a brass cock for drawing off water, previous to re- 
plenishing the cistern with boiling water ; C, a glass gauge, with 
a marked scale D at the side, to give the height of water in the 
cistern ; E, tube through which cistern is filled ; F, vent tube for 
escaping air; G, egg drawer; H, thermometer; 7, air holes for 
ventilation ; J, flannel on which the eggs lie ; K, stand or box on 
which the Incubator sits ; L, earth trays in bottom of drawer. 

The mode of operating this machine is to fill the cistern with 
boiling water, which raises the heat to about 120° to 130° ; after 



Howell's gem hatcher and voitellier's incubator. 101 

allowing it to cool down to 102°, keep the heat at about that point 
by drawing off every twelve hours a sufficient quantity of water, 
and replacing it with an equal amout of boiling water ; the quan- 
tity requiring to be taken out varies with the outside temperature, 
for while a very small quantity suffices in summer, or if kept in a 
warm room in winter, if kept in a cold place it will take a large 
quantity to keep it going. 

In the hands of careful operators, this machine has achieved 
some excellent results. Its defects are: the large quantity of 
water required to work it in cold weather, and the trouble of get- 
ting it hot twice a day ; the insufficient moisture given off by the 
earth trays, and the position of the thermometer, which can only 
be seen by opening the drawer. 

HOWELL'S GEM HATCHER 

is very similar to the last described. The difference consists 
mainly in the egg drawer, which is a tin tray, the bottom covered 
with straw, on which the eggs are laid; the arrangement of 
moisture pans in the egg chamber is much superior to the earth 
of the former. 

The inventor claims that, by reason of improvements in con- 
struction, much less water is required to work it than Christy's, 
which, if so, is a great advantage. 

The machine holds about twenty-five gallons of water, the large 
body of which, doubtless, retains heat longer, and therein gains 
the advantage. 

THE VOITELLIER INCUBATOR. 

This is a French invention, and, like the last two described, is 
also a Hydro-Incubator. 

It is described in Brown's work as " a strong deal chest, thirty- 
three inches square and twenty-one deep, containing a cylindrical 
zinc cistern, packed tightly round with sawdust ; this hot water 
tank is a foot in depth, and has twenty inches inside diameter ; it 
exactly fits, and rests upon a circular wooden frame four inches 
in height, and this is the "hatching nest", in which eggs are 
placed. It will hold about one hundred fowls' eggs, or seventy- 
five duck eggs. 

"Two movable glazed frames, fitting one over the other, are pro- 
vided at the top of the machine, allowing either of access to the 
eggs, when lifted off, or of a glance at the thermometer. The 
inlet pipe is at the right hand top corner, and the only outlet is at 
the bottom. In the centre of the front is a pipe to supply air, but 



10? 



cashmore's incubator. 



the latter is always warmed, before being admitted into the Incu- 
bator, by having a considerable length of pipe running alongside 
of the cistern. The air has no direct contact, either, with the 
eggs, inasmuch as the pipe rises nine inches inside, and a current 
is secured at the top by the aid of a very small piece of piping, 
through which it is supposed the steam from the hot water escapes, 
and so dampens the eggs sufficiently. 

The cistern holds twenty gallons of water. The nest is prepared 
by placing an inch of sand in the bottom, which is kept damp, 
over which is put straw or fine hay on which to lay the eggs ". 




Fig. 80. — cashmore's incubator. 

The same remarks apply to this as to the two previously men- 
tioned. It requires some experience and also " knack " in deter- 
mining just how much boiling water is daily necessary to keep up 
the temperature, and especially in variable weather. 

cashmore's incubator, 

illustrated at Fig. 80, is the last of the foreign inventions we shall 
notice. 

The machine is two feet square and one and a half high. The 
egg drawer is shown in front, partly open ; the bottom of this 
drawer is of perforated zinc or wire cloth, over which is laid a 
piece of flannel or felting, on which the eggs are placed. 



TRUESDALE S AND TATHAM S INCUBATORS. 103 

A tray filled with damp earth is under the eggs to keep the bot- 
tom cool and moist. The tank is filled through the funnel and 
tube B. which is also used for a regulator. C is the pivot for a 
lever, connecting at one end with the float in the funnel and tube 
B, and at the other end by a piece of wire with the pipe of the 
lamp, on which is placed the burner. This pipe and burner is in- 
serted into the tube F, which connects with the chimney I. E is 
a benzoline lamp, carefully balanced on the two brackets shown 
in the cut. The thermometer is shown at 6r, and the ventilating 
holes at H. Inside the tube F, a quarter inch beyond the burner 
and a little below it, is placed a piece of brass shaped like a wide- 
spread inverted A- 

The mode of working the machine is as follows : The cistern is 
filled, through the funnel B, with boiling water, which is allowed 
to cool down until it is at the required temperature ; the lamp is 
lit and placed in position, and the connecting wire from the lever 
is hooked on to the pipe or burner tube of the lamp. When the 
machine gets hotter than the temperature at which it is set, the 
water expanding raises the float, and, by the action of the lever, 
depresses the burner, which passes partly under the a shaped 
piece of brass, thus cutting off nearly all the flame. As the heat 
falls the water contracts, the float falls, and the burner comes 
back into its first position, and the flame attains its full size. 

This is, probably, the most simple of the " self -regulating " ma- 
chines. It has its defects, however, the principal ones being the 
inequality of heat in different parts of the egg drawer, and the 
evaporation of the water from the open tube, which creates the 
necessity for frequent replenishing of the water supply, and re- 
setting of the regulating apparatus. t 

truesdale's incubator. 

This machine is a California invention. Its shape is that of a 
bureau, three feet high and two feet square. There are three 
drawers, in which are movable trays for the eggs ; these trays 
hold one hundred eggs each. Above each drawer are tanks of 
water, which are connected with a galvanized iron boiler, heated 
by a lamp. By a proper connection, the water is constantly in cir- 
culation between the boiler and tanks. There is no regulating at- 
tachment. 

tatham's incubator 

is another Pennsylvania invention, its principal features being the 
division of the water tank by a horizontal partition of metal, per- 
forated at each end, through which the water has to pass to reach 



104 



TATHAM*S INCUBATOR. 



the return flue ; this flue passes down and under the egg drawer, 
into a moisture pan, which it traverses to and fro a number of 
times before passing out to be re-heated. The heating apparatus 
is the continuation of this same flue or tube, arranged in a spiral 
coil, and placed over a peculiarly formed gas burner. 

This burner is fed through a double supply tube, in one arm of 
which is an elbow-like depression, opening at the bottom into one 
end of a U shaped glass tube (this tube is almost identical with tha* 
described in the Graves machine). The long part of this tube is 




Fig. 81. — renwick's incubator. 
filled with alcohol and inserted into the egg chamber ; the U shaped 
end is outside, and filled with mercury. As the heat in the ma- 
chine increases, the alcohol expands, and forces the mercury up 
so that it rises above the elbow in the main gas tube, thus cutting 
off the flow through that, and forcing it to pass through the other 
and smaller tube, in which is a stop cock, thus reducing the flame 
to as small a jet as is wished. 

Another noticeable point is the ventilation. The heat radiated 
from a metal tank over the eggs passes over each end of the 
drawers downward through a flue, and then turning upwards, is 



RENWICK*S THERMOSTATIC INCUBATOR. 105 

carried out through a ventilator at the top. The supply of fresh 
air is received from a valve in the bottom, from whence it passes 
over the water pan and upwards between the drawers, and thence 
off through the flue above mentioned. 

The machine has some very good points about it, but of its 
working qualities we know nothing. It is only adapted for gas, 
and, therefore, of no benefit except to those who live in villages 
or cities. 

RENWICK'S THERMOSTATIC INCUBATOR. 

Is illustrated by Figures 81, 82, 83, and 84. Regarding its con- 
struction and working, Mr. R. communicates the following : 

This incubator was invented by Mr. E. S. Renwick, of Millburn, 
N. J. , the well known scientific expert in patent causes, and it is 
the subject of four patents, viz : No. 193616 ; No. 210559 ; No. 217- 
148 ; No. 224224. Its introduction marks a new departure in the 
art of Artificial Incubation, and, as it has been used successfully 
by the inventor for five years, its construction is worthy of care- 
ful study. Mr. Renwick's early experiments, led him to the con- 
clusion that the generally accepted systems of ventilating Incuba- 
tors, and of regulating the heat by varying the position of the 
lamp wick relative to the wick tube, or by moving the wick tube 
upon the wick, were not as reliable as they should be, and his 
Thermostatic Incubator is characterized by the following leading 
peculiarities; viz: 

First, the ventilation of the incubating chamber by distributing 
the fresh air at its top, and drawing off the foul air at or near its 
bottom. 

Second, the regulation of the heat of the Incubator by alternate- 
ly permitting the heated gases from the lamp to pass through the 
incubating chamber, and to escape without passing through the 
chamber, but without altering the position of the wick or the 
wick tubes. 

Third, the automatic supply of moisture at the top of the incu- 
bating chamber, where the air is distributed, and in exact propor- 
tion to the amount used ; so that the air is charged with moisture 
before coming in contact with the eggs, and consequently the wet- 
ting of the eggs is dispensed with. 

Fourth, the support of the eggs upon rollers connected with 
each other, so as to turn simultaneously in the same direction. 
Hence all the eggs in one tray or drawer, can be turned simulta- 
neously by one revolution of a crank or key, and without the ne- 
cessity of opening the Incubator. 

The regulating mechanism for opening and closing the valves 



100 



REtfWICK*S THERMOSTATIC itfctfBATOR. 



wliich regulate the heat, contains various new features which are 
fully described in Mr. Renwick's patent, No. 210559 ; but a full de- 
scription of them would occupy more space than we have to give 
to the subject. Those who wish information on the subject, can 
readily obtain it by procuring a copy of his patent. 

The last pattern of Thermostatic Incubator used by Mr. Ren- 
wick, has the heat distributed through it entirely by the air em- 
ployed for ventilation, and dispenses with the use of the water 
vessels generally employed to distribute the heat by the circulation 





^/////s^/^txv^xxT^ 



M A 



< issss>;;/ss>/;;sSsi 



< e ico) \ 



U 



K 






B' 



H 



A ' 



-L 



y//A 



fy/>^/ZX&X&>X4Z^^ 




fcj-re > 



B 



J ~ 



)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



S- 



Fig. 82. 

of hot water. It has. an incubating chamber divided by four up- 
right partitions, which form the slides for the four drawers B, B, in 
which the eggs are placed. If the mechanical system of turning 
the eggs is used, three of the drawers are traversed by series of 
rollers about an inch in diameter, and about two inches from cen- 
tre to centre ; and the eggs are laid in rows upon these rollers. If 
the rollers are not used, the bottoms of the drawers are formed of 
wire gauze, or of perforated zinc, so that the air may readily cir- 
culate downward through the egg drawers. The central two par- 



eenwicz's nsrciTBATOR. 107 

titions between the drawers, are separated by a space H, in which 
the thermostat, which controls the temperature, is placed. This 
space communicates by a ventilating nozzle 6r, fitted with a valve 
K, with the casing of a chicken drawer, arranged on the top of 
the Incubator ; and the top of this casing has ventilating holes in 
it for the escape of the foul air. 

The Incubator is heated by means of two kerosene lamps T,T, 
supported upon a counterbalance lamp gallery, which is suspended 
under the Incubator, so that either lamp can be readily removed 
and replaced by depressing the gallery and allowing it to be raised 
by the counterbalance weight. Each lamp is provided with a 
short chimney g, which is applied to the lower end of an upright 
flue d. The upright flue connects at its upper end with a hori- 
zontal T shaped flue, e, which extends through the top of the in- 
cubating chamber, and has an escape pipe, I, from which the 
spent products of combustion escape. Each upright lamp flue d 
is surrounded by an air flue J, which is open at the bottom so as 
to receive the external air ; it is also opened at the top so that the 
air which draws through it escapes at its upper end into the upper 
part of the incubating chamber. The air flue, and the lamp flue 
within it, form a small hot air furnace, so that the air which thus 
enters the Incubator is warmed in its ascent. The entering air 
distributes itself in the top of the incubating chamber, forcing 
the air therein downward through the egg drawers and into the 
bottom of the central space which forms a chimney, by which the 
air escapes. Hence, when the Incubator is in operation, there is 
a constant circulation of air from the upper part of the Incubat- 
ing chamber downward, against the natural tendency of hot air 
to rise. This downward circulation gives time for the particles 
of air of equal temperature to arrange themselves in strata of 
practically equal temperature horizontally, but progressively 
cooler as they approach the bottom of the Incubator. Hence, the 
eggs are heated hottest at their upper sides, while the tempera- 
tures at different parts of Incubator of the same level, ho wever 
widely separated, rarely differ more than a degree ; and are gen- 
erally within half a degree of each other. 

In order that the heat may be regulated, each upright heating, 
flue, d, is traversed centrally by a waste heat chimney, I, whose 
upper end is controlled by a valve, E. When these valves are 
dropped the waste heat chimney is closed, and the hot gases from 
the lamps are compelled to traverse the heating flues and to heat 
the interior of the Incubator. When, however, the valves are 
raised, the waste heat chimneys are opened, and the hot gases 
take the direct course through the chimneys and escape without 



108 



kenwick's INCUBATOR. 



heating the Incubator. Hence, the opening and closing of the 
valves of the waste heat chimneys determine the heat; and 
these operations are effected by the valve mechanism arranged 
under a glass shade, U, on the top of the Incubator. The opening 
of the waste heat chimney is attended with another useful effect ; 
thus, when it is open, the draught is stronger than when it is 
closed ; and in the former case the current of cold air in the cone 
or deflector of the lamp infringes upon the flame with greater 
force and reduces the volume of the flame; thereby producing 
the same effect upon the flame as the lowering of the lamp wick ; 
while the reduction of the force of the draft incident to the clos- 
ing of the valve, permits the flame to increase in volume. The 




Fig. 83. 

valve K of the ventilating chimney nozzle G- is made smaller than 
that nozzle, so that it can not wholly prevent the escape of air, 
and consequently the ventilation can never be stopped. This 
valve is connected with the same shaft that operates the waste 
heat valves E, so that when they are opened the ventilating valve 
is also opened, and the ventilation is increased ; and when they 
are closed the ventilating valve partially obstructs the chimney 
nozzle, and reduces the quantity of air escaping from Incubator ; 
thus facilitating the rise of temperature. 

The valve mechanism is operated by a weight, and the times 
when this weight is permitted to open or to close the valves of the 
waste heat chimneys, and of the ventilating chimney, are deter- 
mined by a compound thermostat composed of bars of brass and 
vulcanite. Two compound bars arranged back to back are used ; 



renwick's incubator. 109 

each bar being composed of a strip of brass and a strip of vulcan- 
ite, 24 inches long and 1 inch broad, rivetted together at intervals 
of an inch. These compound bars are supported at both ends, and 
are connected at their cenrtres with a series of two multiplying 
levers, the fulcrum of the first of which is connected with one 
compound bar, while the shorter arm of the same lever is connect- 
ed with the other compound bar ; hence, the lever is moved simul- 
taneously in opposite directions by the greater or less curvature 
of the two compound bars ; and the extent of movement is about 
double as much as it would be with one bar. A counterpoise for 
the weights of the thermostatic bars is employed, so that they are 
relieved of the strain of moving their own weights, and are conse- 
quently very sensitive to changes of temperature. The end of the 
second multiplying lever is connected by a light rod, with a detent 
which releases the valve mechanism whenever the valves are to 
be opened or closed. Mr. Eenwick uses a weight heavy enough to 
open the valves with absolute certainty, and he found that the 
friction incident to the strain of this weight, affected the sensitive- 
ness of the mechanism, hence he interposed a detent shaft (turned 
by a light spring,) between the main valve shaft and the detent of 
the thermostat, so that the detent is relieved of the strain of the 
operating weight. A light shifting weight also is employed, to 
counteract the effect of the slight residual friction, by helping the 
thermostat to move the detent in alternately opposite directions, 
as the heat rises and falls. To prevent the valve mechanism from 
moving so rapidly as to create a jar, a speed regulator is employ- 
ed, consisting of a small paddle wheel, running in a semicircular 
trough containing glycerine. This contrivance effectually pre- 
vents excess of speed, while it is practically Motionless. 

The supply of moisture to the Incubator is furnished by two 
glass fonts N N set upon the top of the Incubator. Each font has 
a discharge pipe h, whose point dips into a small basin Q, which 
is connected by a tube a with an open topped pan 31, surrounding 
the head of the upright lamp flue. The water stands at the same 
level in the internal pan M, and in the external basin Q ; and as 
the water in the former evaporates, a supply runs in from the lat- 
ter. Whenever the water sinks in the external basin sufficiently 
to unseal the end of the dip pipe h, a little air enters through this 
pipe into the font, and a corresponding quantity of water descends 
to keep the water in the basin and in internal pan at the proper 
level. The Incubator consumes nearly four quarts of water in 24 
hours. The fonts are filled once a day, by closing the point of the 
dip pipe with the finger, withdrawing the cork of the font, pour- 
ing in the water, and replacing the cork ; after which the finger is 



110 



renwick's incubator.* 



withdrawn to open the dip pipe. The greater the heat, the greater 
the quantity of water which is evaporated; so that the supply 
from the fonts is varied automatically. Mr. Renwick in his first 
Incubator, used stop-cocks adjusted by hand to regulate the sup- 
ply of water directly to pans, as described in his patent No. 193616 ; 
but the plan above described operates perfectly, and obviates the 
necessity of any other operation than replenishing the fonts once 
a day. 

The temperature employed by Mr. Renwick varies continually 
from about 98° to 106°, these extreme temperatures occurring from 
half hour to two hours apart. His mechanism can be adjusted to 
run within an extreme variation of three degrees, as indicated by 
a sensitive thermometer, but he believes that a greater variation 
of temperature is more in accordance with the variations that 

eggs are hatch- 
by the change 
the eggs from 
rim of the nest, 
the temperature 
does not vary 
degrees with a 
eight or ten de- 
rounding air, 
extreme tem- 
not of too long 
in the practical 
cubator, the va- 
temperature of 
He also finds 




occur when 
ed under a hen, 
of position of 
the centre to the 
He finds that 
inside the egg 
more than two 
variation of 
grees in the sur- 
provided the 
peratures are 
duration ; and, 
use of his In- 

riation in the Fig. 84. 

the eggs themselves does not exceed one degree 
that, with the ample ventilation and supply of moisture main- 
tained in the incubating chamber of his apparatus, an occasional 
increase of temperature to 110° is not fatal to the eggs. 

Mr. Renwick's system of turning the eggs is represented in Fig. 
84, the eggs being supported on roller^, which are connected by 
endless bands of tape or of India-rubber ; the pivot of one of the 
rollers is extended through the front of the egg drawer, and is 
fitted with either a crank or with a clock key, by turning winch 
all the eggs in the drawer are turned simultaneously. This sys- 
tem of turning by rollers was patented to Mr. Renwick in Patent 
No. 224224. The eggs are left on the rollers for nineteen days, 
when they are by preference transferred to a drawer having a 
perforated bottom, upon which the chickens are supported with 
ease to themselves, and with the capacity of moving about, when 
they emerge from the egg shell. 



smith's and batcheller's incubators. Ill 

After the chickens are hatched, Mr. Eenwick brings them up in 
what he calls a " Ventilating Brooder", in which the chickens are 
kept warm by hot air heated by a small lamp. The air is intro- 
duced through a perforated floor, on which the chickens are sup- 
ported, and they are covered by an inclined board whose under 
side is lined with plaited carpet. The covered brood chamber 
communicates at one side with an enclosed run in which the 
chickens are fed. This ' ' Brooder " is fully described in Patent No. 
215,070. 

smith's incubator. 

This is one of the latest inventions, and was exhibited the past 
winter for the first time. In general shape it resembles the 
Eclipse. It consists of a case enclosing two tanks of water, an 
upper and a lower one ; the first to give heat by radiation to the 
top of the eggs ; the second to vaporize water and keep the air 
charged with moisture. Each tank has a capacity of about fif- 
teen gallons ; the large amount of water being used to prevent 
sudden changes of temperature in the egg drawer, which is be- 
tween the two tanks. These tanks are both open at top, so that 
the evaporation of water is constant and copious, and renders 
necessary frequent replenishing. 

The regulation is effected by electricity. A ' ' pyrometer " 
(another name for a thermostatic-bar) is used as a circuit-closer, 
and the electric current acting on a magnet, opens and closes the 
ventilator. 

Over the top of the machine is an enclosed space which is used 
as a temporary artificial mother. This is warmed by the waste 
heat from the machine. 

The cost of running a machine of two hundred egg capacity is 
said to be about eight or ten cents per day. 

batcheller's perfection incubator. 
Of this machine we know nothing, save that it is offered for 
sale by the inventor in one of the Western poultry papers. We 
have been unable to get a description of it from either the inven- 
tor or any one else, hence conclude that it will not bear investi- 
gation. 



112 



THE FAVORITE INCUBATOR. 



THE FAVORITE INCUBATOR, (See Fig. 85), 

is a Yankee adaptation of ideas gleaned from other machines. 
The Boiler and lamp are taken from the Centennial ; the tank 
and egg-tray from the Novelty or Carbonnier's ; and the regula- 
tor is an adaptation of Guest's patent fire alarm or heat-indica- 
tor. The following description is taken from the circular of the 
manufacturers. 

" The heat in the machine is applied from the top, with per- 
fect uniformity throughout the egg-drawer, no greater in one 
part than in another, and under the control of an automatic 
regulator. 



The moist- 
plied from 
eggs, in just 
quantities, 
proper de- 

The ven ti- 
dy and un- 
constant cur- 
passing 
egg - chamber 

The case of 
of wood; 



is 
of 



pine, 



and 




ure is sup- 
bel o w t h e 
sufficient 
and at the 
gree. 

lation is stea- 
changeable, a 
rent of air 
through the 
at all times. 
f the machine 
an inner one 
an outer one 



Of black-wal- Fig. 85.— THE FAVORITE INCUBATOR. nut . 

The regulator governing the heat in this Incubator, is com- 
posed of a group of bars in the top of the egg-chamber, and made 
of a material that is very sensitive to heat and cold ; its action is 
positive, opening and closing the ventilator, and graduating the 
flame of'the lamp, thus checking the advance or decline of the 
temperature. The mechanical part is regulated by a thumb 
screw on the outside of the machine, which allows the tempera- 
ture in the egg-chamber to be fixed at any desired point. When 
properly adjusted, the expansion bars affected by the heat, act 
upon an escape lever, releasing an arm, which passes from one 
side of the lever to the other, at the same time turning down 
the lamp flame, and opening the ventilator, allowing the hot air 
to escape from the egg-chamber. It remains in this condition 
until the heat has fallen one to three degrees, when a reverse ac- 
tion of the escape occurs, causing the arm to return to its former 



THE SUFFOLK INCUBATOR. 



113 



position, the ventilator to close, and the flame of the lamp to be 
turned up; this movement takes place every fifteen to thirty 
minutes, and goes on continually, by means of power transmitted 
by a simple reel and weight." 

The machine is a very good one, but being a plain infringe- 
ment on several other patents, it has never been patented, and 
its use may at some time bring trouble from that cause. 

the Suffolk incubator (See Fig. 86.) 
finds its birth-place on Long Island, New York State. It is 
described by the inventor as follows :— 

" The Incubator is strongly made of yellow pine and walnut. 

There is ab- 
ing to get out 
give trouble in 
cubator ; can 
any person of 
ligence; it will 
eggs that would 
the most favor- 
stances in the 

The incuba- 
hot water in 




solutely noth- 
of order and 
the whole in- 
be managed by 
ordinary intel- 
hatch all the 
hatch under 
able circum- 
__ natural way. 
tor is heated by 
galvanized iron 
not water in 86> _ THE SUFFOLK INCUBATOR fect uniformity 

tanks, with per- 5 J 

of heat through the egg drawers. 

Two drawers are arranged at the side of the lower section ot 
the tank and receive the young chickens directly after they are 
hatched, the chickens being dried in these drawers. 

The moisture, which is a continuous evaporation supplied by 
an earth drawer from below the eggs, and at the proper de- 
gree of heat, so that the eggs do not require sprinkling at any 

time. . . 

The ventilation is steady, as a constant current of air is pass- 
ing through the egg drawers at all times, the air passing m at the 
bottom and around the lower tanks and over the moisture pan 
keeps the air at an even temperature, before it passes through 
the egg drawer and out at the top of the incubator through the 
air chamber, giving a constant current of air without chilling 

the eggs." . _, 

The last paragraph of this description is rather vague ; but we 



114 THE WHITE MOUNTAIN. INCUBATOR. 

give it as we find it. The machine has no regulator and like 
others of its class requires more or less watching. 

THE WHITE MOUNTAIN INCUBATOR (See Fig. 87.) 

is another adaptation of other people's ideas. In all the essential 
points it is a minature "Eclipse" differing simple in shape and 
and arrangement of egg-trays, etc. It is regulated by a battery 
and electric circuit. As its name indicates, it was "hatched" 
out in the " Old Granite State." 

the acme incubator (Shown by Fig. 88.) 

is the invention of the writer. It is a hot-air machine, and was 
designed to meet a call for a cheaper machine than the Old Cen- 
tennial. 




Fig. 87. — THE WHITE MOUNTAIN INCUBATOR. 

Fig. 88 shows a one-hundred and fifty egg machine with doors 
closed. 

Fig. 89 shows the inside of egg-chamber which is explained as 
follows : — 

The heat is generated by the lamp L, which has an ordinary 
" B " burner (one inch wick). A copper drum is heated by this 
lamp, from which the warm air radiates and passes upwards 
through the hot-air chamber E, where the evaporating trough 
H, divides the current, and charges it with moisture. The shield 
TJ, deflects the rising air over the drawers D D, in which the 
eggs are placed. By a peculiar arrangement, the air is caused to 
pass out of the sides of the egg chamber at Y Y, and thence 
through the ventilators V V. 



THE ACME INCUBATOR. 



115 



The smoke and gas from the lamp are carried off outside the 
Incubator and cannot by any possibility enter the egg chamber. 
Here has been a great scource of failure in machines of this class ; 
the fumes from the lamp entering the egg chamber and killing 
the chicks. 

The hot-air chamber is closed by the small door E ; the inner 
door B, is then closed and fastened, and then the outer door A, 
which is double and packed. By this construction the eggs in 
the first row next the door are equally warmas those in the back 
of the machine. 

The small windows G- G-, give light enough to see the thermom- 
eters, and also to examine the eggs when hatching, without 
opening the inner door, and thus cooling off the egg chamber. 

The lamp L is attached to and suspended under the heating 
box by spring catches, one of which is shown at X, and can be 



detached or put 
seconds. It can 
being taken off. 
lamp is detached, 
also slides out, 
ken out of their 
are packed inside 
thus reducing the 
to about half that 
cubator of the 
As before sta- 
constructed en- 




Fig. 88. 

THE ACME INCUBATOB. 



in place in a few 
be filled without 
In packing, the 
the heating box 
the legs are ta- 
sockets, and all 
the machine; 
size of the box, 
of any other in- 
same capacity, 
ted, the Acme is 
tirely of metal; 
is double cased, with a space of three inehes non-conducting 
packing between the cases. 

It is fitted with the same kind of thermostatic or regulating- 
bar which has proven so successful in the Centennial. The 
regulating apparatuses also similar, but much more simple. 

The egg-drawers are an entirely new invention of my own, and 
can be used throughout the entire time of incubation. With the 
egg-turning- trays heretofore offered, it was necessary to substi- 
tute a plain drawer or tray with a tight bottom when the chicks 
were hatching. Another advantage of the Acme turning-trays 
is that they will hold one more row of eggs than those of any 
other make. In an incubator, the size of the No. 1 Acme, this 
would make a difference of fully twenty eggs. The entire con- 



116 



haight's incubator. 



tents of both drawers in the Acme — 150 eggs — can be turned in 
ten seconds. A broad patent was granted on this machine May 
23d, 1882. 

haight's patent incubator 
is the invention of Henry J. Haight, of Goshen, N. Y. We have 
no full description of it, Mr. Haight, not yet having placed the 
machine on the market; although rather complicated it is said 
to achieve good results. It is regulated by a thermostat. 

The egg-tray is worthy of particular mention; it is a rack 




Fig. 89. — the acme incubator. (Inside View), 
covered with course muslin or sacking on which the eggs lie ; this 
rack is suspended by a bar or axle across the centre, the ends 
working in journals; one end of the rack being held in place by 
a spring bolt. A duplicate rack of same construction is laid 
over the first and secured to it, thus placing the eggs between 
the two trays ; the bolt is then drawn and the two trays revolve, 
or turn half of a revolution, thus turning the eggs upside down, 
and leaving them resting on the sacking of the second tray : the 
first tray is then unfastened and taken off, and the eggs put 
back in the machine. 

The machine and turning-rack are both patented. 



HALSTED'S SELF-REGULATING INCUBATOR. 



117 



J. M. HALSTED'S new self-regulating incubator 
(See Fig. 90), 
is a California product, hailing from Oakland, and was patented 
Aug. 8th, 1882. 

The inventor says of it : — 

The Incubator is a hot-air Machine, warmed by a kerosene 
lamp, and burns about 1* gallons of oil to hatch 100 eggs, or 3 
gallons to 250 eggs, in this climate. 

' It is made of five of the best non-conducting substances and 
constructed so thoroughly that years of constant service will not 
impair its efficiency. The front is furnished with double glass 
doors through which the eggs and thermometer are visible with- 
out opening the machine. By the scientific manner in which 
;he heating apparatus is constructed, every particle of heat is 
atilized and a great saving of oil is effected. The air thus warm- 
ed is automatically moistened by an ingenious device, before en 



tering the egg cham- 
it passes in a con- 
the eggs and then 
tors, which are al- 
iri such a position 
enter. The moist- 
or decreased as de- 
done automatically, 




ber, through which 
stant current over 
through the ventila- 
ways open, yet placed 
that no cold air can 
ure can be increased 
sired, which being 
avoids the necessity 



Fig. 90. 

J. M. HALSTED'S 

of sprinkling the new self-regula- eggs daily by hand. 

The lamp gives TING incubator. sufficient heat to use 
the machine successfully in the coldest climate, and yet is so 
constructed that it works equally well in the warmest. 

The formation of -the heating apparatus is such that neither 
smoke nor gas can enter the egg chamber, in which the air is 
constantly changing, therefore it must always be pure and whole- 
some. Underneath the eggs a current of cool— not cold— air is 
kept circulating, which, as it becomes impregnated by carbonic 
acid gas from the eggs, passes out through the bottom ventilators. 

The new Patent Eegulator is the Perfection of Simplicity, is 
strong, reliable and will last a lifetime ; it is connected directly 
with the lamp and turns the flame up or down with the least 
variation of temperature. , 

Above the egg chamber is an artificial brooder, in which the 
young chicks can be placed as soon as dry. 



118 



THE PACIFIC INCUBATOR. 



LA BARGE'S INCUBATOR 

comes to us from Missouri! It was patented Dec. 21cfc, 1880. 
It is a rather complicated affair, regulated by electricity. 

Its chief claim to notice is in its egg-turning arrangements. 
The eggs are placed in what the inventor calls "hammocks" 
which are suspended from frames or ' ' cradles." These are in 
tiers, and are hinged at one end, and the other connected with 
levers, which, elevating the free end causes the eggs to roll in one 
direction, and lowering it, they roll the reverse way. The move- 
ment is caused by a clock, set to act every twelve hours. 



THE PACIFIC INCUBATOR (Fig. 91.) 

as its name indicates, originated on the Pacific Coast in California. 

water chambers are 
vy galvanized iron, 



'* The boiler and 
constructed of hea- 
and the heat gen- 
water circulation 
eggs from above, 
ture as far as pos- 
perature is ascer- 
the thermometer 
ber at the top of 
shown in the ac- 

The exterior case 
Pine, and finished 
cabinet or chest of 
reasonable hand- 
twenty years, 
plied from one ker- 
ted under the cen- 




Fig. 91. 

THE PACIFIC INCUBATOR. 



erated by the hot 
is applied to the 
thus imitating na- 
sible, and the tem- 
tained by inserting 
in the water cham- 
the machine, as 
companying cut. 
is made of Sugar 
so as to resemble a 
drawers, and with 
ling will last for 
The heat is ap- 
osene lamp, situa- 
ter of the boiler in 
zes, and from two 



the two smaller si- 
lamps (one on either side) of the largest sized Incubator. 

The temperature is regulated by turning the wicks of the 
lamps up or down as may be necessary ; but this requires very 
little attention, and the machine can be left to itself for hours 
together, and there is no necessity for touching it during the 
night, a slight turning down of the wicks iu the evening being 
all the care that is required, as a fall in the temperature of two 
or three degrees during the night does no injury." 

As will be seen from the foregoing description, this machine 



THE PARREY INCUBATOR. 



lid 



has no regulator. While it might run with comparatively uniform 
temperature in the climate of California, in the country east of 
the Eocky Mountains, it would be absolutely impossible to con- 
trol the temperature within ten or more degrees, unless it was 
constantly watched. We understand the maehine has accom- 
plished good work in the hands of its inventor. It was patented 
January 20th, 1883. 

THE PARRET INCUBATOR (Fig 92.) 

hails from Michigan. It is a Hot- Air Machine. The following 
description is taken from the circular of the manufacturer : 

"The oven or egg-chamber is a wooden frame covered with the 
heaviest straw-board, both inside and outside, with a space be- 
tween of an inch tosss^^ „„ ll , „„| and a half, which 

simply as a dead- 



is left on the sides 
air space, but on 
non - conducting 
The doors, of 
two, close against 
jams, thus mak- 
air-tight joint, 
doors is a win- 
which the ther- 
seen without 
oven. 

oven is the heat- 
cylinder of iron, 




Fig. 92. 

THE PARRY INCUBATOR. 



top is filled with 
material, 
which there are 
india rubber 
ing a perfectly 
In one of the 
dow, through 
mometer may be 
opening the 
Beneath the 
er, a compound 



in fact three cyl- 
inders, so arranged that though no smoke or fumes from the 
lamp can get to the eggs, there is a current of hot, pure air, con- 
tinually ascending into the oven, and in so ascending it has to 
pass through a zinc tube, from which it is discharged near the 
top of the oven, from whence it is, by means of a radiator above 
and (in the large ovens) a distributer lower down, brought down 
to the eggs in such a way as to give a very uniform heat in all 
parts of the oven. 

The lamp is below the heater, and for the smaller sizes of 
machines, is a lamp of tin, made expressly for the purpose. For 
the larger machines I use an oil stove of the most approved style. 

In the zinc tube above mentioned, is a valve or damper, so 
hung, that as the regulator expands with the increase of heat, the 



120 



THE MONPAREIL HYDRO INCUBATOR. 



valve drops shut by its own weight, and is again opened by the 
contraction of the regulator as the heat decreases. 

The regulator (not shown in the cut) is a double bar which 
expands and contracts as the heat rises or falls, and operates a 
valve as described above. The bar is so arranged that by simply 
turning a thumbscrew, the valve can be made to open or close at 
any desired point. " 

This machine is not patented. 

THE NONPAREIL HYDRO INCUBATOR (Fig. 93.) 

which has its origin in Wisconsin, belongs to the class represent- 
ed on pages 100 and 101, viz: — " Chrysty's," " Howells," and 
"The Voitellier." 




Eig. 93. 

It consists of a large tank, packed down in some non-conduct- 
ing substance ; the tank being partially emptied, and re-filled 
two or more times daily with hot water, to keep up the. heat, no 
lamp or regulator is used. It was patented Oct. 18th, 1881> 
and described in circular as follows : — 

The form of the " Nonpareil " Hydro Incubator is seen in the 
cut, and is furnished with a large galvanized iron tank. The 
tank is six inches smaller each way than the outside frame/which 
space is packed with non-conducting material, as is also a three 
inch space on the top of the tank, which retains the heat in the 
tank a long time. The egg drawer, G-, is below the tank, and is 



THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 



121 



one inch smaller each than the tank. The bottom of the drawer 
is made of perforated zinc, this is covered with flannel, on which 
the eggs rest. Under the eggs are the trays of water, E, with 
cool air circulating over them, which evaporates the water, caus- 
ing a moisture to arise which keeps the eggs moist. B B shows 
the air tubes which passes through the side of the machine 
through the packing and into the centre of the egg drawer, over 
the eggs. Over the tank is the brooder, where the chickens 
should be placed as soon as they are hatched. The brooder is 
kept sufficiently warm by its position over the tank, thus mak- 
ing one machine do the work usually done by two separate ma- 
chines, thus reducing the expense of raising the chicks. A, is 




Fig. 94. — THR NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 

(Patented Nov. 14, 1882). 



A — Thumb piece, or crank, on roller of turn- 
ing-tray, 

B— Boiler. 

C— Connecting rod from ontside lever of 
rock-shaft to lamp. 

D — Outer door. 

i£— Moisture pan under egg tray. 

G— Egg tray. 

H— Ventilator to nursery. 

/—Lamp lever. 



.ST— Outside lever of rock-shaft. 
L — Lamp. 

N— Door of nursery. 
P— Rods or wires of adjustable egg tray. 
S— Springs that hold lamp in place, 
T— Moisture trough. 
V— Ventilator flues from egg chamber. 
Z— Inner door with glass window, (shown 
open). 



the faucet for drawing off a portion of the water; D, false front 
that closes up after the egg drawer and water trays are pushed 
into their place; I, large air tube passing down into the egg 
chamber ; J, shelving for the chicks to run out on ; K, lattice work 



122 



THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 



to keep chicks on the shelves ; L, flexible curtains to allow chicks 
to run out and in under the brooder. 

THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR (Fig. 94.) 

is the invention of the author of this book. It is the culmina- 
tion of nearly twenty years' study and experiment. Point by 
point has been worked out, tested and adapted, until the pres- 
ent machine is offered to the public, with the firm belief that 
there is nothing better to be had in the market either at home or 
abroad. 

The reader will please observe that I do not claim — as do some 
of my modest competitors — to have the only incubator in the 




Fig. 95. — THE EUREKA INCUBATOR. 

(See Page 96). 

market that will hatch a reasonable percentage of the eggs. 
Neither do I claim to have a perfect Incubator — as do others — 
for there is no work of man's hands that ever was or can be per- 
fect ; and he who claims his invention or creation as such, is too 
well satisfied with himself to see wherein he has made mistakes, 
and too obtuse to correct them or improve his work. 

The inventor who considers his creation as perfect, and then 
rest upon his oars, soon strands upon the shoals of ignorance and 
self-conceit ; while his wide awake rivals are carried onward by 



THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 123 

the tide of improvement, to success and fortune. Recognizing 
the above facts, I have made it my aim to give as perfect a machine 
as possible, to improve wherever I saw a necessity or an oppor- 
tunity; to add every convenience essential to success, and to 
turn out a thoroughly good and practical Incubator, at the low- 
est price consistent with good workmanship. 

THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR 

is made in two parts ; an inner case of galvanized sheet iron, cov- 
ered by an outer casing of wood ; with a dead-air space between 
the two cases. It has double doors — an inner and outer one — 
the inner one being provided with a glass window through which 
to examine the thermometer and the eggs. The outside case is 
held together by screws, and long bolts bind the whole machine 
firmly together, so that if a leak should occur at any time, it can 
easily and quickly be taken apart, the necessary repairs made, 
and the machine put together again without bruising or defacing 
the case. 

There no electricity, no clock work, no weights, pulleys, or 
double levers. A simple rock-shaft passes through the side of 
the machine, with a lever on each end of the shaft; one of which 
is connected with the Regulator, and the other with the lamp. 

A thumb-screw in the back of the machine, on the outside, 
adjusts the regulator to any required degree of heat. 

The Regulator is a combination of Thermostatic bars, so pivot- 
ed and linked together, that they multiply power and motion. In 
other words, in the No. 1 machine, I use four bars, each two feet 
long; but my arrangement of them makes them equivalent in 
movement and strength to a bar sixteen feet long. I thus get a 
motion and power sufficient to act directly upon the lamp and 
ventilators through a single lever, and do away with all clock 
work, weights, reels, pulleys, etc. This regulator is placed in 
position before the machine leaves the factory, and all the pur- 
chaser has to do is to connect it with the lever and adjust it. It 
is placed above the eggs, out of the reach of the young chicks. 
It is sensitive to the least change of heat, and instead of chang- 
ing the flame from one extreme to the other — either very high or 
very low — as is the case in other machines, it regulates the 
lamp to give the required heat. The action is regular and 
graduated to the needs of the machine : if in a very warm room, 



124 THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 

a low flame is produced : if the room grows colder the flame in- 
creases; and if the temperature of the room continues to fall, the 
flame is increased until the full power of the lamp is turned on. 

Ventilation is provided for, by taking in a current of pure air, 
which passing close to the tank, is heated before it comes in con- 
tact with the eggs. It is then drawn to the four corners of the 
egg-chamber and thence carried by tubes outside of the machine. 
By this device the sides of the egg-chamber receives the same 
amount of heat as the centre, and there are no cold-corners. 
The ventilation is constant, not fitful, and the air is always pure 
and sweet. The method of ventilating solely through an open- 
ing in the top of the egg-chamber has been modified. In using 
that, system exclusively, the egg-chamber is alternately over- 
heated by turning on the full power of the lamp, and then cooled 
down by opening the valve and allowing the hot air to pass off: 
thus making an unnecessary waste of fuel, as well as a constantly 
changing temperature. 

Moisture is provided, first by an evaporating pan so placed that 
it receives a gentle heat from the return flue, and thus supplies 
a moderate amount of vapor constantly under the eggs, and sec- 
ond by a trough suspended above the eggs, where it receives the 
direct heat of the tank. 

The turning-trays which were patented in the " Acme " In- 
cubator, have been adapted to this machine. It is a very simple 
device : a band of any suitable material is laid upon the bottom 
of the egg-tray, and attached to, or passed over rollers at either 
end of the tray : rods are placed across the tray at proper dis- 
tance apart to allow the eggs to lie between them : by drawing 
this web or band in either direction the eggs are rolled or turned. 
The entire contents of the tray can thus be turned in from three 
to five seconds, and without taking them from the machine. 

These rods are movable and can be placed at any desired dis- 
tance apart, thus adjusting the spaces to suit eggs of any and all 
sizes. 

The egg trays are all on one tier; not one above the other. It 
is a well known scientific fact that heat alwavs rises, and that 
therefore it is impossible to keep a room or chamber at the same 
temperature at varying elevation. Hence a box or chamber 
heated to 103° at a certain height, will vary three to eight degrees 
at six inches above or below. 



THE NEW CENTENNIAL INCUBATOR. 125 

The space under the egg-chamber has been utilized as a nursery 
or temporary brooder for the newly hatched chicks, in which 
they may be kept for a week, or longer, if desired. This is 
heated by the flue which carries the hot water from the tank 
back to the boiler, and supplies the heat to the chickens' backs 
as designed by nature — not under their feet, as is the case with 
many machines, making the chicks weak and sickly. 

Another new feature is the arrangement of the heating appa- 
ratus, so as to use the same lamp in either winter or summer. 
A movable cap over the boiler, when removed, creates a draft of 
cooler air which carries off the surplus heat : when in place it 
reverses the draft of air, causing a heated current, and doubling 
the heating surface of the boiler. This arrangement is applied 
more particularly to the No. 1, or one hundred egg size. The 
larger sizes, No. 2, three hundred eggs, and No, 3, five hundred 
eggs, are fitted with several burners so arranged that only one or 
more may be used as needed. Both the No. 2 and No. 3 ma- 
chines have been run in a cool room with only one " D " (one- 
and-a-half inch) burner, showing a very small consumption of 
oil. 

These several features are all secured by patent. 

For further description and prices, address the inventor, A. 
M. Halsted, Eye, New York. 



CHAPTER XI. 
Houses, Yards, Location, etc. 

It is not every location that is suitable for poultry raising. A 
low marshy place should be avoided ; it will be almost certain to 
cause disease in the flock of old fowls, and make it nearly im- 
possible to raise a paying percentage of the young. Place the 
buildings on an elevation, if possible ; the grounds dry, and pre- 
ferably with a southern or south-eastern slope. If the yards are 
bordered by water — a pond or stream, so much the better. 

A rough piece of land well sprinkled with underbrush and 
rocks makes an excellent poultry yard, provided the rocks are 
not broken and piled, so as to afford a harbor for rats, weasels 
or other vermin. Small trees or bushes are desirable for shade 
and shelter. I advise planting currant bushes — also low grow- 
ing evergreens. In my own yards I have peaches, plums, pears, 
and quinces, and find the fowls are beneficial to the trees and 
fruit; I have good crops every year. 

On new ground for immediate shade, I would plant quick 
growing vines — gourd, morning glory, etc., and train them on 
brush stuck into the ground so as to form a sort of low arbor. 

In the yards for young chickens, set out tomato plants (or 
plant the seeds) and protect them until the vines begin to set 
their fruit ; train them the same as advised above, and you will 
have a good shade for the chicks, as well as a bountiful and 
wholesome supply of vegetable food for them during the fall. 

Regarding the size of the yards, we have to be governed by 
our limits : in other words, " cut our garment according to our 
cloth." If the land is available I would advise abundance of 
room; if not, do the best we can. I do not say it is impossible 
to raise a great number of chickens on a small piece of land, but 
the smaller the yard or yards, the greater the care, and the more 
work required necessary for success. 



HOUSES, YAKDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



:27 



I would not recommend less than one-eighth of an acre for 
fifty hens and four cocks ; I would prefer one-quarter acre for 
that number — yet I can (and have) done well with that number 
on a yard of less than one-sixteenth of an acre. I consider it 
possible to raise to the age of broilers, and market from a quar- 
ter acre of ground, fifteen hundred to two thousand chickens per 
year; but to do this, requires unceasing care and watchfulness, 
and the most thorough sanitary precautions. 

To the beginner I would say, do not try to keep over fifty lay- 
ing hens to a quarter acre of ground ; nor to raise over five hun- 
dred chickens per season on the same limits, To do even this, 
the runs for the young stock should be divided into sections — 
about four will answer, and one of these sections spaded or 



'B 




OB 


! 


f— 1 

A/ 






t 
M 


i 






i • p 










p 








in 








w 







H 



5P 



Fig. 96. 
plowed, at least as often as once a week ; and semi-weekly would 
be better. Sow this plowed ground with wheat, oats, barley or 
buckwheat, harrow or rake it in, and let the chicks scratch for 
it. One quarter to one-third of the run should be kept in sod- 
grass — unless you have a meadow or grass plot to turn them on 
p^rt of each day. The portable fence, illustrated by fig. 101, 
page 132, will be found very convenient in this work. 

In the buildings to shelter the fowls, I would advise a number 
of small houses, rather than one of large size, for the breeding 
stock. A convenient as well as economical way, would be to 
build each house double; that is, to shelter two yards of fowls, 
letting the dividing fence join the house in the centre. Houses 
twelve feet long, by six feet wide, will make two apartments, 



128 



HOUSES, YARDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



each large enough to accommodate fifty hens and four cocks, — 
which are as many as had best be kept together. 

This, however, is not always feasible, and it is more convenient 
to put each yard by itself. In such a case I would recommend a 
building planned like Fig. 96. The roof of this may be either 
double-pitch or lean-to, and the outside construction to suit the 



taste and means of fcl 
house is eight by 
into an open shed 
one side of which is 
on the other side 
single fowls. From 
opens into the pas- 
that a door opens 
room; the perches P 
made movable. The 
so as to protect the 
and open by a hang- 
passage B, so the at- 
the eggs without go- 
room ; a large win- 
small one in the rear 
light and air; an 
fowls to pass in and 
A building of this 
with 4x6 sills, can 
any part of the 

Where it is de- 
breeding stock un- 
th e yards sub-divi- 
enclosure, the inte- 
may be arranged as 

This was desigued 
gentleman in New 

It is a double-roof 




the builder. The 
twelve -feet, divided 
A, five feet wide, on 
a dust bath D, and 
coops C, for penning 
the shed, a door D' 
sage B, and from 
into the roosting 
P are simple horses, 
nests N are covered 
hens fouling them, 
ing door into the 
tendant can gather 
g ing into the roosting 
^ dow at W, and a 
Pq of the passage, give 
opening for the 
out is made at H. 
size, by being made 
be moved at Trill to 
yards. 

sired to have all the 
der one roof, and 
sions of one general 
rior of the building 
shown in Fig. 97. 
by the writer for a 
Jersey, 
house, twenty-four 



feet wide, and ninety-six feet long. A passage way A A, five 
feet wide, extends the length of the building, opening into the 
yards at either end. There are eight apartments for fowls, B B, 
each 9-Jzl8 feet, with nests N N, arranged as in previous plan to 
be opened from the passage way. The perches Y Y are movable 



HOUSES, YARDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



129 



trestles, all on a level, and about twenty inches above the floor. 
There is a large window in each room as shown at w w, and 
boles for the egress and ingress of the fowls at v v. 

The centre of the building, twenty-four feet square, is two 
stories high. On the ground floor it is divided into an office H, 
which may be divided from the passage a a, or not, as desired, 
and which opens by a door into the yards in front of the build- 
ing. A room G. which can be used as a setting room, the nests 
shown at N N, and an opening into an out-door run at v t (it 
was designed for that purpose,) an egg room B; with egg cabi- 
nets or closets at e e e, and a cook room provided with a steamer 
or large kettle k. xxx are spouts to bring the grain and feed 
from the feed room above. D is the chimney passing straight 
up through both stories. 

The second floor, (see Fig. 98), is entered by the stairs 8, 



which land in the 
are bins for grain, 
this room a door 
cubator room I, in 
L L for the Incu- 
nursery for the ear- 
r—o, room 12x24 
ered with sand, and 
twenty feet long, 
give snnlight. b b 
the young chicks. 



in- 


l en 






1 r 


f! T 1 






cr 1 


I 


a 


1 






J d 


■ J 






1" 

J 


& 




CM 


M- 


\ 



feed room F. PPP 
feed, etc. From 
leads into the In- 
which are tables 
bators. R is the 
ly hatched chicks 
feet, the floor cov- 
one large window 
on the east side to 
are brooders for 
Other windows are 



Fig. 98. 

shown at w w in the different rooms. 

If I were to build after this plan, I should re-arrange the sec- 
ond story, so that the nursery would come across the front or 
south side and the Incubator room ou the north side of the 
house. A room which does not get the noon-day sun is much 
the best in which to run any Incubator. 

Fig 99 is still another style of building which was designed 
for a gentleman living near Philadelphia. It is octagonal m 
shape, one story high, and twenty-eight feet in width The 
ground plan is shown in Fig. 100. The door H opens into the 
passage leading into the central room M, which is lighted by 
small windows under the eaves of the cupolo. These sashes are 
pivoted so as to swing open for ventilation. There are six rooms 
for the fowls, and one room 8 which may be used, either for a 



130 



HOUSES, YARDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



setting room or an Incubator room. In case it is preferred to 
use the central room M for Incubators, 8 can be used for fowls, 
or a nursery for the chicks. In this plan the arrangement of the 
nests are shown at N N, the windows at W W, and doors at D D> 
the nests are facing the wall, and entered at e e. The fences 
from this building radiate, and allow the yards to be made any 
size desired. 

Whatever the style of building, ample provision must be made 
for ventilation. 

In each of the yards, a small shed, not necessarily over two or 
three feet high — (a few boards held by a light frame will answer) 
— should be provided, under which fix a dusting place of fine 




Fig. 99. 
sand, wood ashes, and some tobacco dust. It is thus dry m all 
weather. In exposed situations, I would make this shed for win- 
ter use, by raising the front three feet high, and letting the back 
down to and into the ground, having it open toward the south. 
In another part of the yard, place a trough or shallow box, in 
which keep a supply of fine gravel — unless the soil is gravelly — 
in which case it is not needed. 

For the young chicks accommodations must be made accord- 
ing to the number intended to be raised. If not over one thous- 
and, an ordinary shed facing south or east, with several brooders 
of capacity sufficient for that number of chicks will be found all 
that is necessary. But if it is intended to go into it on a more 



SOUSES, YARDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



131 



extensive scale, in addition to the buildings for the breeding 
stock, there will be required an Incubator house or room; a nur- 
sery for the young chicks, which should be partly covered with 
glass, and a second building, into which they should be placed 
when four or five weeks old. The size of these buildings is to 
be governed by the extent of the business. Beside these, there 
might be profitably used one or more sheds, peaked roofed, open 
on all sides, with perches placed not less than four feet from the 
ground. After the middle of April, the chicks that are old 
enough, should be made to roost in these. 




Fig. 100. 
A good size for one of these sheds, is six by twelve feet. To 
build one, set six posts into the ground, three on a side, six feet 
apart each way; let the posts stand six feet out of the ground. 
On the top, spike 3x4 joist, all around for the plate; three 
feet below let in another tier of joist on which to rest the floor, 
which may be of hemlock boards or any material wished ; from 
the centre of each end erect a stud, on which nail a ridge pole 
two feet above the plates. Make the roof of tongued and grooved 
pine boards, battened, letting the eaves project a foot or more. 



132 



sotJSEs, yards, location, etc. 



Lath the sides and ends, or put on wire netting if preferred, from 
the floor to the roof, making a door two feet wide and three feet 
high at either end. Set the perches about two feet above the 
floor, and as close together as deemed best, perhaps about sixteen 
to eighteen inches is near enough. Put a small lath ladder from 
each door to the ground for the chicks to get up on, A shed of 
this size will house nearly three hundred chickens, and when shut 
in at night they are safe from cats or other nocturnal enemies. 
The space under the floor affords a dry shelter during rainy days, 
or it might be enclosed and utilized for brooders and younger 
chickens. 

Fig. 101 illustrates a section of portable fencing made of three 
upright pieces of lx2-j- inch furring strips, to which is nailed a 
bottom board ten inches wide and thirteen feet long ; three feet 
ten inches above this another furring strip is let into the three 



uprightipieces, 
inches above 
strip is nailed 
uprights, 
mason's lath 
from the board 
cross strip, 
length lath 
this makes a 
fence, six feet 




and eighteen 
that another 
on top of the 
Full length 
are nailed 
to the first 
and half 
above that; 
light, neat 
three inches 



Fig. 101. 

high. The sections are bound together with old telegraph wire, 
and are kept upright by braces of the same, fastened to stakes 
which are driven into the ground until the wire is pulled taut. 

In fencing the yards, the height will have to be regulated by 
the breed of fowls kept. The Asiatics require only a fence of 
three feet to keep them within bounds, while the Leghorns, and 
other light-bodied kinds will readily go over a board or picket 
fence six or eight feet nigh. A few years since I put up some 
fencing of wire-netting five feet wide, with a board underneath, 
making the fence nearly six feet high, and 1 find the Leghorns 
are perfectly controlled by it; better, in fact, than by a picket 
fence, two feet higher, which I had been using. In putting up 
wire fencing, never use a top rail; it gives the fowls a foot hold 
to light upon, and they are certain to fly over. 

For the benefit of a class of fanciers who always wish the best 



HOUSES, YARDS, LOCATION, ETC. 



133 



of everything, regardless of expense, I append a cut and descrip- 
tion of a building built expressly for an Incubator house. See 
Fig. 102. 

The house illustrated is of stone and brick. It may be con- 
structed of wood and answer its purpose equally well. It is six- 
teen feet square inside; the outer door opens into a little hall or 
vestibule five feet wide, and extending from the right hand side 
of the door across to the left wall of the building, and is used for 
an egg room, having a case of drawers, and a folding shelf under 
the window on which to place the drawers while sorting the eggs. 
To the right of the door, in the other corner of the building, is 
a small dark room in which the eggs are tested by means of a 




Fig. 102. AN" INCUBATOR HOUSE, 
large lamp, a powerful lens, and a large concave reflector. The 
rest of the building is one room, ten-and-a-half feet by sixteen, 
and is entered by a door from the hall, right opposite the outer 
door, and lighted by one window on the north side, opposite the 
door. The room is provided with tables or stands for Incubators, 
and a large folding shelf under the window on which to place 
the egg-trays while they are out of the machines. It has ample 
ventilation through the cupolo. The building is lathed and 
plastered, with a dead air space between the inner and outer 
walls, and also between the wall and the roof. Such a building 
would have an Incubator capacity of about sixteen hundred 
eggs; and if of wood, would cost from seventy-five to one hund- 
red and fifty dollars, according to the material and finish. 



INDEX: 



Illustration 
Page.. Page. 

General Remarks— Economy, Cleanliness 6 

Artificial Incubation— Moisture 9 

" " Temperature 11 

Management of Incubator 14 

The Egg— Germination, nine illustrations 21 19 

" Growth and Development 22 21 

" Fertility 24 

" Time of Impregnation : 25 

Duration of " 26 

Testing Eggs 31 30 

Living and Dead Embryos, seven illustrations 32 31 

Tests for Life 35 

Care of Chicks — Feeding 38 

" " MaggotPits 40 

" " To adult age 44 

Mr. Baker's Establishment 47 

Incubators vs. Hens 49 

Brooders vs. Natural Mothers 50 

Egg Testers, four illustrations 51 52 

Brooders — "The Centennial," 54 37 

" " B^nnemain's," two illustrations ' 54 55 

" "Graves," 55 56 

" " The Eclipse," 56 56 

" "Reaumur's," 56 57 

" "Mrs. Cheshire's," three illustrations 56 57 

"Christy's" Hydro 57 58 

Incubators— Egyption Egg Oven, two illustrations 60 61 

■ " Chinese Hatching Baskets 62 

" Reaumur's Hatching Apparatus 64 

" Bonnemain's • 64 63 

" The Eccaleobion 65 

" The Potolokian 65 

" The American Egg Hatching Machine 65 64 

" Cantelo's 66 

" Minasi's 66 

" Adrien & Trioche's 66 

" Carbonnier's, two illustrations 67 65 

Vallee's 69 67 

Brindley's 70 68 

Col. Stuart Wortley's 70 

Schroder's 71 69 

" Moll Pitcher 72 70 

" American " 8 



INDEX. 135 

Illustration 

Page. Page. 

Incubators — Halsted's Automatic, four illustrations 73 71 

" Graves' , 75 73 

" Halsted's Hot Air 76 74 

" Day's Automatic, two illustrations 78 75 

Bakers' 68 77 

" Myers' 79 

The National 80 79 

" Hyde's - 80 

The Centennial 81 81 

" The Eclipse 85 82 

" Weston's 87 

" Corbett's Apparatus 88 84 

" Boyle's, two illustrations 89 86- 

" Jaques' 90 88 

" Perfect Hatcher 91 90 

" Waterhouse's 92 

" Egyptian 93 92 

*' Masterton's 93 

'* Davis' 94 

" The Reliance 96 93 

" Mead's 95 

" Oneida Community 95 

'« The Novelty 95 95 

TheEareka 96 122 

" Penman's, three illustrations 97 96 

" The Scotia 99 

Chrysty's Hydro 100 100 

The Gem 101 

' The Voitellicr 101 

Cashmore's 102 102 

" Truesdale's 103 

" Tatham's. 103 

" Refiwiek's, four illustrations 105 104 

Smith's Ill 

" Perfection Ill 

" The Favorite 112 112 

" TheSuffolk ....113 113 

" The White Mountain 114 114 

" The Acme, two illustrations 114 116 

Haight's 116 

" J. M. Halsted's Self -Regulating 117 117 

" La Barge's 118 

The Pacific 118 118 

" Parrey's 119 119 

" The Nonpareil Hydro 120 120 

" The New Centennial 121 121 

Location for Yards : 126 

Poultry House for fifty hens 127 127 

" " larger number 128 128 

Incubator Room, Nursery, etc 129 129 

Octagonal Poultry House 128 130 

" .' **' " ground plan 131 

Buildings necessary for Poultry Breeding for Market 121 

Portable Fencing . v 132 132 

An Incubator House , 133 133 



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